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Full title: The antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints against changing Section 25 (2)(b) of the South African Constitution to make land redistribution without compensation possible. Part 2: The dysfunctional political and socioeconomic system of the ANC regime (4)

Gabriel P Louw
iD orcid.org/0000-0002-6190-8093
Research Associate, Focus Area Social Transformation, Faculty of Humanities, Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University, South Africa (Author and Researcher: Health, History and Politics).

1. Background

1.1. Introduction

The study of the previous article (Part One) on the antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints offer a broad identification of elements and role players present in the political and socioeconomic system of the ANC regime. They each oppose the intended land grabbing of White land by the ANC regime to transfer it free to poor and landless Blacks. The antagonists see land grabbing as part of a greater international political and socioeconomic process through which the ANC regime is promoting its revolutionary and Marxist-socialist policy.

The primary aim of this article (Part Two) is to continue the reflection on these various elements and role players as already described in the previous article (Part One). It is only with such a comprehensive presentation that a picture can emerge of the antagonists’ civil right to uphold the Constitution in its present form. The presentation of the various elements and role players are divided into six subdivisions.

It is important to note how Chomsky’s1 points out that modern politics often hampers rational thought, allowing the practice of freedom, but limiting the pursuit of truth (creating ignorance among a large portion of South Africans on land ownership, indigenousness and what political and personal integrity means). This limited pursuit of truth limits the development of the critical role of leaders of integrity and independent thinking in skewed political systems. This vacuum causes a lack of responsibility to provide students, individuals, citizens, politicians, and the1:10 :“…wider public, the knowledge and skills they need to be able to learn how to think rigorously, to be self-reflective and to develop the capacity to govern rather than be governed”.

For Chomsky1 it goes much further1:10:

“… it is not enough to learn how to think critically. Engaged intellectuals must also develop an ethnical imagination and sense of social responsibility necessary to make power accountable and to deepen the possibilities for everyone to live dignified lives infused with freedom, liberty, decency, care and justice.”

In the view of the antagonists, Chomsky’s1 view is a reflection of how the ANC over time kept the South African public away from understanding the meaning of true justice, democracy and civil rights by limiting a non-racial intellectual leadership in the country’s politics. This is also how they successfully deprive Whites of dignified lives infused with freedom, liberty, decency, care and justice. The antagonists view the land process as something that is symptomatic of the ANC’s decay and as something that precludes Whites from a life of freedom. In this context of racism and isolation of groups, as experienced at presence by the South African Whites, Henry Giroux, professor at the McMaster University and distinguished visiting professor at Ryerson University, points to the correctness of Chomsky1 conclusion, namely that politics can only become emancipatory for a given group of people when these people speak out fearlessly and publically about their experience, like the antagonists are now doing in relation to land. Without such a political catharsis and public resistance against the government of the day by the suppressed antagonists, the criminal politicians of the ANC and their crooked politics will continue. The antagonists are deliberately being obstructed from the participation in politics by the ANC, and if they fail to force their identity into the total political setup, the can recede into obscurity. Challenging the ANC regime on the land issue is of absolute importance.1 Giroux writes in this regard1:11:

“Chomsky clearly connects with a need among the public for those intellectuals willing to make power visible, to offer an alternative understanding of the world, and to point to the hopes of a future that does not imitate the scurrilous present.”

Giroux further highlights1:11:

“Chomsky publicly argues against regimes of domination organized for the production of violence, and social and civil death. The force of his presence…offers up the possibility of dangerous memories, alternative ways of imagining society and the future, and the necessity of public criticism as one important element of individual and collective resistance”.

Chomsky’s1 advice on rectifying discrimination, exploitation and abuse of suppressed groups echoes the ideas of the antagonists in their present fight against the ANC’s planned amendment to Section 25 to make land grabbing possible.

Chomksky’s1 description of leaders with “poor political intelligence” fits the leadership crises of the ANC since 1994, from Nelson Mandela up to Cyril Ramaphosa, characterised by state capture, fraud and corruption. These leaders have failed to assure that everyone can live dignified lives infused with freedom, liberty, decency, care and justice in their countries. The antagonists as a group, opposing the ANC, know that the Whites are on their own in the ANC’s racist political reign and that they are an easy target for things like land grabbing.2

The antagonists see the ANC regime as one that lacks the political intelligence to be ethical and socially responsible and to be accountable so that everyone in South Africa could have dignified lives infused with freedom, liberty, decency, care and justice. They became a crooked autocracy, greatly biased against minorities like the Whites. As Mthombothi says2:3: “The ANC is drunk from the alcohol of corruption.” They have lost contact with political, social and personal decency and justice. The ANC’s deviant behaviour since 1994 is spilling over to the land issue, forcing the antagonists to take them on with some sound arguments. It is in this context that Articles 3 and 4 offer some insights.2

1.2. Research intentions

The research aim of this article is to evaluate and to describe what the antagonists believe about the dysfunctional political and socioeconomic system of South Africa that supports and promotes land grabbing. Opposition to this dysfunctional system stands central in the antagonists’ perspective on changing of Section 25 (2)(b) of the South African Constitution to make land redistribution without compensation possible.

2. Method

The research was done by means of a literature review. This method has the aim of building a viewpoint from the available evidence as the research develops. This approach is used in modern political-historical research where there is a lack of an established body of research on the ownership of South African land for the period 1652 to 2018 in South Africa. The sources include books for the period 1947 to 2018 and newspapers for the period 2017 to 2018. These sources were consulted to evaluate and to describe the current perspective of the antagonists for the unchanged keeping of Section 25(2)(b) of the Constitution and thus the continuation of the present land redistribution policy with compensation in place since 1994.

The research findings are presented in narrative form.

3. Discussion

As already indicated, the antagonists’ perspective reflects a broad array of elements and role players active in the political and socioeconomic system of the ANC regime that they associate with the intended expropriation of White land without compensation by the ANC.

The presentation of the various elements and role players in this article is done in six subdivisions.

3.1. Political horrors, anarchy and revolution

3.1.1. Imitating the horrors of the Mao, Stalin and Mugabe regimes

The antagonists fear that the murderous events of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the horrors of Stalin’s regime and, closer to home, Robert Mugabe’s implementation of the land grabbing in Zimbabwe, can be repeated in South Africa. In fact, they see the farm murders as proof that it is already starting. Opperheimer’s3 writing on the land issue is one of the few instances where antagonists tell the world of their deep-seated fears of a “post-2018 South African Uhuru”. However, the writing is symptomatic of a deeply entrenched idea of victimhood cemented into many White mindsets from 1652. Opperheimer3 almost writes as a lonesome White telling the world why he thinks the present political setup where land must be left untouched, must be upheld to assure Whites of a future economic and personal safe-heaven and as much power as the Blacks in South Africa. But it is also an outcry to the outside world to offer help to maintain the present political and economic model of South Africa if they want to not only to assure the stable and safe lives of Whites after 2018, but also the safeguarding of foreign economic and political interests here. There is undoubtedly a belief hidden under layers of arguments on the land-reform issue that if the present political and economic status quo can be upheld successfully, the present land ownership of White rights will be left unchanged. The flip side of that view is that land expropriation without compensation, with its many other conflicting disturbing rooting will open the floodgates for political instability and marginalisation of Whites.4-6

3.1.2. The Zimbabwe-South African environment of anarchy

When analysing the Zimbabwe-South African environment of anarchy, is it important to note that in Zimbabwe no horrors were initially committed against the Whites. Robert Mugabe suddenly steered land grabbing into action with his political radicalism and racism. This is very similar to the political radicalism and racism now awaking in South Africa. However, in reality there have not been any atrocities aimed at Whites at the hand of the ANC. The conflict situation has been limited to heated political debate (if one regards the farm murders as a matter of crime that is not linked to formal politics).3,5

The antagonists are quick to point out that in example cases, like Zimbabwe, violence emerged when the targeted group lost its military power. This could be why land expropriation was not an avenue in 1994: the White minority was still politically organised with a significant hold on the military. However, the numbers of the White South African have declined from 1994 (there are 2.7 million Afrikaners left, and the numbers are in constant decline). They have also become politically disorganised and disoriented. The antagonists believe that the radicals in the ANC, EFF and PAC think that the time is ripe to address the matters left untouched in 1994.6-8

The lack of Black land ownership is often blamed for the entire context of inequality, unemployment and poverty. Taking from Whites and the re-dividing it among the poor and landless have become an obvious rectifying step. The ANC regime sells the immediate implementation of land expropriation, even without compensation to owners, as a priority to avoid the tragic outcome of land grabbing in the form that it took in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The antagonists see this reasoning as a dishonest attempt to hide the ANC’s true motives. They feel that the current Black poverty and inequality primarily have their roots in the ANC regime’s substandard governance. Taking land from Whites cannot dramatically improve the country’s failing economy. Black poverty, unemployment and inequality will just continue.6-8

3.1.3. South African farm murders

The antagonists see the constant rise in farm murders where Whites are the prominent prey as an indication that Mugabe-like chaos is looming. This is a murder spree, they argue, that can also spread to urban areas and cities. The antagonists allege that the killing of Whites, especially Afrikaner farmers, have become a common phenomenon in South Africa since 1994 in an effort to drive Whites from their land.9,10

The antagonists also see poor governance as one of the main causes of the murders on White farmers as it has led to poor policing, a general lack of law enforcement, immense poverty and unemployment, social and personal isolation of races, uncontrolled gang activities, and the ANC regime openly denying farm murders as a problematic phenomenon. The ANC dismissing of farm murders as “Black danger” propaganda vestigial of the previous regime and false reporting by the antagonists, is seen by the antagonists as planned lies. The antagonists accuse the ANC government of very little effort to prevent it or to offer compensation, even to discuss the matter publically.9-11

The antagonists have two prominent concerns, namely 1) that Blacks are taking revenge on White-farmers for Apartheid; and 2) that there is a direct effort to drive Afrikaner farmers from their farms as was done by the Mai-Mai in Kenya, by Swapo in Namibia and by Mugabe’s supporters in Zimbabwe. They try to prove this with official data. They report that in 2016 70 White farmers were murdered in 345 farm attacks, meaning one farm murder every four days and one farm attack every day. They support their argument on the danger that farming holds for Whites in post-1994 South Africa, the antagonists further compared the murder averages of 2016 for South Africa with the 2016 data on global averages. In this comparison the world average is 7:100 000 versus South Africa’s average of 33:100 000 (the crime statistics for the financial year 2017 to 2018 reflects a rise to 36:100 000). South Africa’s problems with violent crime are also confirmed by the murder of members of the South African Police Service in 2017, namely 54:100 000. The antagonists claim that the murders of South African farmers came to a shocking 133:100 000 in 2016. In this context it is also reported that the SAPS data for the period 1991 to 2016 reflect the death of 14 589 farm dwellers with a ratio 60% Whites versus 40% Blacks.9,10

It is clear to the antagonists that White farmers are slowly, as in Zimbabwe, being driven from farms. They see the farm murders as focussed systematic ethnic cleansing, and the decline in commercial farmers from 65 000 to only 35 000 in 2017 serves as further evidence of a murder spree aimed at White farmers.9,10

Ian Cameron12, head of community safety for AfriForum, recently reported that there have been 300 farm attacks and 41 farm murders since the 1 January 2018 to March 2018. For the financial year 2017–2018 (1 March 2017 to 28 February 2018), AfriForum reports 70 farm murders. The official crime statistics released by parliament on 11 September 2018 for the same financial year reflects only 62 farm murders with six attempted murders, 33 farmhouse robberies and two rapes; an outcome that AfriForum dismisses as a gross misrepresentation, with good reason.10,13-15 Cameron12 claims that his organisation shares their statistics with the police on a regular basis and that the data should therefore correlate. The antagonists see the eight less farm murders reported by the SAPS as manipulation, as reflected by Cameron’s response12:12:

“I am scared to say it is deliberate, especially now with all this attention from the international community”.

3.1.4 South Africa’s general murder statistics

The antagonists point out that however much the SAPS and the ANC regime would like to dismiss Trump’s description of South Africa as the murder hotspot for White farmers, the country’s overall murder statistics are more than enough to confirm Trump’s worries. They feel that these numbers are indicative that the events brought on by Mao, Stalin and Mugabe is already part of the ANC’s efforts. This reflection also includes the presence of low-level anarchy in the country. For the financial year 1 March 2017 to 28 February 2018, parliament’s general crime statistics14, published on 12 September 2018, are terrifying. It greatly overshadows farm murders. It reflects that 20 336 people were killed, of whom 6 555 were shot and killed. Of the rest 4 866 were killed in knife attacks, 445 by the use of hands, 76 in axe attacks and 72 were beaten to death with a sjambok. The Minister of Police, Bheki Cele14 (National Police Commissioner from 2009 to 2012) said in reaction14: 1-2:

“It doesn’t matter what figures you put, but if you can’t deal and control the murder cases, you are not bringing any joy to the South African people. It doesn’t matter what else you reduce; if people die and when you look at the figures, there are 57 dying a day. It borders close to a war zone while there is peace; there is no war in South Africa.”

The DA spokesperson on police matters, Zakhele Mbhele14, pinpointed the root of these evils when he responsed14: 1-2:

“…the ANC had failed to keep ordinary citizens safe. The fact that the ANC spends an average of R9.1 million to protect one VIP but only R1 500 per South African resident reveals that their skewed priorities are crippling the fight against the unacceptably high levels of crime in the country.”

Japhet Ncube16, the editor of the Star, drove it home when he wrote16:2:

If you feel unsafe in your home and on the streets, you haven’t been imagining things. South Africa is one of the most unsafe places on Earth. More people are dying here than in many war zones across the world.

We are all just statistics waiting to happen. The criminals rule South Africa.

And if we bank on politicians to stop the killings, the criminals, who sometimes work with police officers, will be knocking on your door soon.

And you can’t do anything about it. The police are unable to do anything about it. The government is unable to do anything about it. The battle has been lost.

The police is currently short of 62 000 officers due to a lack of funding and mismanagement. In the same period billions of Rands went down the drain as a result of state capture. The size of the police force has decreased from 200 000 in 2010 to 191 000 in 2018, meaning a decline of 9 000 in eight years while the population is growing.17

The antagonists see many other indicators that point to the horrors of the regimes of Mao, Stalin and Mugabe. The annual GLOBAL Peace Index of the Institute for Economics and Peace gives us insight into the most dangerous countries in the world, ranking 163 independent countries on how peaceful they are (or, in contradiction: how dangerous they are), with the lowers scoring countries being those technically at war (like Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Iraq, Somalia). These 163 countries were assessed using 23 indicators that were each scored on a scale of 1 to 5. The 163 countries cover more than 99.7% of the world’s population. South Africa came in at 39th, but this changed negatively after the September 2018 parliamentary report on crime compiled by the SAPS.9 The editor9 of The Star writes9:12:

“The stats paint a grim picture. They show why South Africa is in the league of countries as Belize, Honduras and Venezuela in the murder stakes.”

The antagonists therefore view inciting public remarks such as “We will not kill the Whites now” as gravely serious.9,15,18-20

3.1.5. Increasing anarchy and destruction

3.1.5.1. What is anarchy?

The antagonists’ belief that the horrors of the regimes of Mao, Stalin and Mugabe can also happen in South Africa, is based on the realities of upheavals in the country. There are many examples. There has been a wave of civil disobedience over the last ten years. Poor service delivery has resulted in protests and unrest. The shortage of jobs, accessible education and training, housing and medical care is resulting in full-scale anarchy, leaving the possibility of civil war and revolution before the end of 2019. The antagonists are not alone in this thinking. The South African veteran political analyst and journalist, Barney Mthombothi21, confirms this fear when he tries to convey what anarchy is and what it means to the ordinary citizens of South Africa21: 17:

Anarchy is defined in the Collins English Dictionary as: “General lawlessness and disorder, especially when thought to result from an absence or failure of government…the absence of any guiding or uniting principle; disorder; chaos”.

That could be our destination if we’re not careful.

Mthombothi21, a wise man, fine diplomat, true patriot and excellent journalist, avoids creating panic by saying that the country is already in anarchy. The political truth is that the country is in a constant low- to mid-level stage of anarchy; it is just waiting for the interference of the politically corrupt and opportunistic Zuptiods’ and intervention by the present South African government to explode into full-scale anarchy and its accompanying revolution and civil war. This may happen as soon as the 2019 election. All South Africans have been affected by injustice and have been dreaming of a broad socio-economic correction. Inequality, poverty, unemployment and landlessness are central. It is mostly the majority of poor and landless Blacks who had hoped that the election of 27 April 1994 would bring a new, improved life and who had placed the ANC into government to do exactly that, who are really suffering. They are now starting to make the country ungovernable with unrest and violence. The antagonists see an escalation in the scope, frequency and the severity of unrest and violence.21,22

Although Whites and land owners have thus far been largely unaffected, they are aware of this growing danger, not only in terms of their future right to own land, but also their personal safety. The tragedies of Belgian Congo, Rwanda, Somali, Sudan and Zimbabwe are burned into their minds, consciously and unconsciously. As much the Whites are confused about the most likely outcome, they are also confused about addressing the matter. Their public participation has mainly centred on 1) the legality of the 1994 regime change and upholding the Constitution, and 2) the use of the court of law to force order. They see land expropriation without compensation as a social injustice and a form of civil disorder. In their view it is a stop en route to anarchy and revolution to overthrow the present democracy of South Africa.21,22

3.1.5.2 The antagonists’ undeclared fears

The antagonists have thus far failed to address their own deep-seated fears constructively in public. Their public communication lack openness surrounding their fears about anarchy, both anarchy that could result from the populace’s growing frustration with the ANC government and the anarchy that could stem from the hostility against Whites that is built into the ANC’s radical statements on land expropriation and remarks such as “kill the Boers”, “the colonist Boers stole our land”, and “land possession by Whites is a sin”. This silence of some White South Africans is the result of a fear of reprisals from the poor and landless, of being labelled as non-Africans, colonists, or being associated with radical groups such as the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). The antagonists feel that a dislike of any objection to Black wrongdoing has been cemented into the mindsets of the radicals in the ANC, EFF and PAC. This entrenched dislike of justified criticism is illustrated by the reactions to Donald Trump, who dared to publically acknowledge the problems South Africa has with land expropriation and the murders on White farmers (Can Trump be wrong to ask for an inquiry when facts show that in 2018 the average for murders per day was 57 persons in South Africa, which is six times more than the average number for the USA? The question posed to the ANC regime is: Who are these 57 murder victims and why and where did these murders happen?).14,15,21,22

The ANC regime’s growing loyalty to and association with anarchist elements are also forcing most Whites into passivity and silence, although they speak freely in private. They have to voice their concerns about a failed ANC regime, their view that expropriation without compensation amounts to theft and their doubt about Ramaphosa’s ability to serve their interests. Such a “confession” would open a conversation on land reform. It could put Donald Trump’s remark on South African land grabbing and the threat to White lives into perspective, away from the propaganda and cover-ups.12,14,15,21,22

3.1.5.3. Attitudes of apathy about criminal wrongdoing in society

Antagonists point out that the recent and current unrest and violence involve a mixed crowd of mostly Black youngsters and adults with a focus looting of shops and properties, torching vehicles and public and private buildings and occupying private or public land. In Cape Town, losses due to arson directed at the Metrorail train fleet, has topped R300 million since 2015. Just fighting off the arson and protecting passengers by means of a security team have cost Cape Town’s city council, the Cape provincial government and Prasa R48 million per annum. The police mostly stand by passively, leading to a culture of no prosecution as if they fear angering a powerful political group who may be their bosses in the near future (or as if these hooligans are already their political partners). This apathy towards criminal wrongdoing is a global phenomenon where anarchist forces are gaining control.21,23 The base of the wanton destruction is a direct outcome of the masses’ disillusionment with the ANC’s politics, elite and regime and their failed democracy.21,23

The direct outcome of the masses’ disillusionment is already clear, as Mthombothi21 writes21:17:

“We’re witnessing a level of destruction probably not seen in the country’s history, save in war”.

Indeed, in well-ordered countries with well-ordered regimes in place, this would not happen as here in South Africa where the criminals run the show and the people are left unprotected, as Mthombothi24 reflects24: 25:

“South Africa have become blasé about crime, especially the ANC’s mindset on the matter and the thousands of people’s murdering, rape and robbing every day went unnoticed, even became internalised as the normal.”

Above is an important remark by Mthombothi24, seeing that the ANC-IFP anarchy in KwaZulu-Natal in the 1990s was described as brutal and cold-blooded, at the time the most severe within the borders of post-1910 South Africa. In this context is it important for the antagonists to note that the present anarchy may have a strong racial and ethnic under build, namely Black-on White and, as in KwaZulu-Natal, Black-on-Black violence.25-27 Munusamy25 writes as follows about this forgotten history and the possible implications of a revolution for the country’s stability25:18:

“The history books reduce the violence to a bland narrative of events and statistics about the number of people killed. Articles you find online fail to adequately convey the horror of the time and the depth of human suffering in violence-ravaged parts of the province.”

Sibongakonke Shoba27, a political editor of the Sunday Times, brings us back to the murder scene in KwaZulu-Natal in the 1990s. Shoba’s warning is clear27:21:

It was not the first or last time that IFP impis raided the area. Due to KwaMashu’s proximity to Richmond Farm and Lindelani, IFP strongholds, the bloodthirsty warmongers often acted on their temptation to show off their shooting skills whenever they marched past the township.

But that Sunday they were craving more action.

We later learnt that our attackers had been bristling for action after being addressed by IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi at a rally in Durban. They were still dressed in IFP regalia, mainly T-shirts emblazoned with Buthelezi’s beaming face.

3.2. Exclusion of the poor from the ANC

The political, social and economic disillusionment of the poor and landless Blacks has become deep-seated. It is no longer simply dissatisfaction with poor service delivery, corruption, political incompetence, poverty, landlessness and homelessness. It has become an “…immense feeling of exclusion from the ANC regime, party and elite”, writes Mthombothi.21:17 He continues by commenting on the ANC elite’s failure as responsible political leaders21:17:

While apartheid excluded people by virtue of colour, the new dispensation unfortunately has its own haves and have-nots. ANC members and those close to them are “deployed” to cushy jobs in the government, get handed state contracts, live in plush suburbs and drive fancy cars.

The poor, meanwhile, can only gawk in awe and amazement at the opulence that is at last so close and so visible, but that they can neither experience nor enjoy. While the government has failed to provide basic services to the poor, it has at the same time become a generous cash cow for the rich, the powerful and the connected. The contradiction is both stunning and maddening. It’s Animal Farm all over again. The pigs are having a great time.

But, the antagonists point out, during anarchy the “prosperous pigs on the animal farm are gobbled up by a beast with the head, mouth and teeth of a dragon”: total anarchy and full revolution. The description of illegal occupations below shows how far this process had progressed.

The final words of Fikile Mbhele28, who obstinately refused with 28 other families to vacate low cost houses that they occupied illegally of the eThekwini municipality since January 2018, became a common refrain among occupiers, reflecting a total disregard for law and order28:10: “We decided we had to come here and take these houses, and secure the houses from outsiders.” Occupiers argue that as individuals with constitutional rights, they are constantly being overlooked by the ANC municipalities. Instead unrelated people from outside their traditional areas were offered houses and even councillors have become involved in illegally selling houses. The legal steps taken by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) against the eThekwini municipality to defend the occupiers’ right to occupy in view of the failure of the ANC’s local systems to serve the individual citizen’s rights are enlightening. There is no municipal housing beneficiary list, the housing administration is substandard, residents of the area are not consulted about placements, the municipality breached the Constitution and other pieces of legislation in the handling of this housing project, while other housing projects in the city in general also lack a housing allocation policy in line with current legislation.28

This not only provides insight into the human rights violations of the ANC regime since 1994, but confirms the correctness of Mthombothi’s21 postulation, namely21:17: “…that the ANC regime has failed to provide basic services to the poor and that the political system, from the top to the lower levels, has become a generous cash cow for the ANC’s rich, powerful and connected.”

Mthombothi’s21 direct reference of the ANC’s model as21:17: “… an animal farm wherein the pigs are having a great time”, is quite applicable and descriptive, but at the same time a serious point of concern for the future of South Africa.

Ramaphosa has thus far failed to act decisively by using the security forces to end anarchy in any form or even to condemn it. This reality is reflected by his skirting the issue of violence. Does he fear “…the hubris of Zuma’s 2014 prediction that the ANC will ‘run this government forever and ever…until Jesus come back’”? A racial and ethnic bloodbath can result from Ramaphosa’s land expropriation without compensation and labelling of Whites as colonial land thieves, argues the antagonists.29

The antagonists wonder if Ramaphosa is treading carefully around Black unrest and anarchy because of his poor positioning in the NEC of the ANC. His position means that he has to refrain from angering Jacob Zuma and his strong faction. Ramaphosa is insecure about his position in the unstable ANC at this stage of his presidency in 2019. Some political analysts and other hopefuls only see a future stable country in the distance with Ramaphosa in a doubtful future role, as Bruce30 reflects30:16:

“We ordinary folk are just going to have to get used to a little uncertainty. For my part I think the Zuma crowd will gradually fade away. Whether that means Ramaphosa succeeds is another question.”

Predicting the presence of leaders like Ramaphosa and Zuma in our future political history is foolishness, the future is just too unpredictable, but seasoned politicians, historians and futurists can offer the voters various considerations. At this stage of our history, the antagonists view both Ramaphosa and Zuma as risks and persons who do not belong in respected democratic governmental regimes. Chronic anarchy has sadly become part of their rule.21,29-31

Viewed from another perspective, the antagonists’ note, the people’s despair with the ANC regime’s failure to protect them has led to behaviour recent years that could be seen as chronic anarchy, but which is in reality pure self-defence and an expression of “normal” civilian rights to address their immediate danger. Mothombothi24 focused on these “legal” self-defence behaviours as follows24:25:

Society has lost faith in the government’s ability to protect its citizens, and as a result vigilantism is on the rise. People are taking the law into their own hands.

Police Minister Fikile Mbalula seemed to lay the blame for rampart crime at the door of the police. The police should obviously take the rap; but so should the minister. The buck stops with him. The police, for instance, had been without stable leadership since the departure of the hapless Riah Phiyega as national commissioner two years ago.

And of course the crime stats have a lot in common with the horrendous economic number laid bare in parliament a day later: two sides of the same coin. A thriving economy would create jobs and take people out of crime.

3.3. The impact of contaminated international alliances on South African land grabbing

Political commentators view land expropriation fashioned after the EFF’s fantasy of wholesale confiscation of private property and banks as misleading “fake news”. However, it is not so far-fetched when considering the rhetoric of the ANC elite, many other radicals, and Ramaphosa himself on the absolute need for immediate expropriation without compensation. The view of the retire politician, Tony Leon, touches on a nerve. He reflects on the ANC’s radical new land redistribution and the inclusion of Julius Malema and the EFF as part of the unstoppable future radical rulers of South Africa. He compares the resulting future of South Africa to that created by political leaders Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Leon’s32 comments read as follows32:18:

He [Nicolás Maduro] and his late predecessor [Hugo Chávez] implemented an EFF-style programme of uncosted giveaways, at war with private production or even basic economics, reducing what was once the richest country in the hemisphere to beggary.

Inflation is recorded at 13 000%, the world’s highest, and prices of basic foods, mostly now imported, double every month. But eventually fact-free economics wearies the truest of believers, and very few bothered even to vote last weekend.

One fed-up Chavista, Carlos Gonzales, 64, who abstained, put a price on his disillusion. “My monthly pension is only enough to buy one frozen chicken…”

The radical propagandists have already decided on the outcome of the parliamentary hearings on possible land reform. There is only one outcome they find acceptable: extreme land reform. The antagonists feel that it clear that the radicals will force down radical land reform, whether or not it could end in revolution, rebellion, war or a second Rwanda.33 Malema33 himself stated publically on 22 July 2018 that if revolution breaks out33:3: “…the EFF will join in to empowers the previously oppressed to have access to the land”.

In the view of the antagonists, chronic anarchy is evident from the illegal land occupations all over South Africa. These occur outside the boundaries set by Section 25(2)(b) or any other legal interpretation of the Constitution. Examples include occupations in Alexandra, Klipfontein, Waterfall, Johannesburg, and Hermanus in the Western Cape. Ramaphosa spoke out against unlawful land occupation in March 2018 and called on the police to clamp down on it (like taking down 100 illegal structures at the end of March 2018 in Alexandra and arresting five persons). He also told MPs the adopted parliamentary resolution on expropriation without compensation is not a call for “a smash-and-grab-guideline”. However, the land grabbing is gaining momentum and Ramaphosa has become very quiet on the matter. Land-related incidents – resistance against evictions, land invasions and land protests – numbered 70 between 2013 and 2017. Of these 84% occurred in metros, with only 16% occurring in rural areas. However, a finding of the Institute for Security Studies that there has recently been a flare-up with 41 of these conflicts taking place in 2017. Of the 70 incidents, as many as 71% turned violent, with again the most in 2017. In KwaZulu-Natal, housing offices in Zwelihle, a library and a satellite police station were set on fire recently. Even farms in the historic Tea Estate area in Inanda, owned by Black small-scale farmers who farm on the land and hold deeds to it, have been targeted by Black occupiers. It is reported that in April 2018 some of the Black land invaders and grabbers near Durban flattened a sugar-cane crop to make way for their illegal houses.34-37

In his overview of the looming anarchy, Umraw38 reflects that the City of Cape Town reported a 74% increase in land invasions year on year; that in Gauteng one man was killed and four people injured in protests over land, while various property developments in KwaZulu-Natal were stopped due to illegal occupation of land by squatters.38

In the Free State about 100 inhabitants of the Monyakeng Township at Wesselsbron, started in August 2018 to erect plots on a farm, while the same happened in August on a Stellenbosch wine farm. In both cases the farmers alleged the efforts were well-organised and started after Ramaphosa’s announcement on expropriation. Jansen39 reports as follows on the Stellenbosch’s farmer’s reaction39:4:

“Things just happened to smooth and the structures are erected on an organised way. Here stands sometimes gleaming cars around. I understand the structures are being given at R350 each to the people and that prominent ANC-men are involved. He said that the police ignore the complaints or arrived hours later.” [Own translation].

Also, the Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) veterans joined the fight from in KwaZulu-Natal in April 2018 by illegally occupying units in the Masinge housing project in Margate, flats in Cornubia, Durban and the Aloe Ridge social housing complex in Pietermaritzburg, ignoring court orders. Nair reports that there are hundreds of members of the MK Military Veterans Association who have been illegally occupying housing developments across KwaZulu-Natal.34-37

Themba Mavundla37 shows how serious this has become when he, as the provincial chairman of the MK Military Veterans Association, reveals their aggressive and hostile intentions by saying37:4:

“They need the houses. This has been going on for years and nothing to do with land expropriation. We won’t back down.”

The initial fight for rural land has spilled over into urban areas between 2017 and 2018. Gift Maboke35, a community leader from Alexandra, paints a picture of this future of conflict outside the legal system35:4:

…none of the city’s vacant land [urban] was safe from occupation. ‘Any [vacant] land we see we are going to attack [regardless] if it is owned privately or by the city’; and

…the fight for land was shared by all poor and disenfranchised people across South Africa. ‘We are not talking about Alexandra [Johannesburg] only. It’s not us alone. We are talking about all townships and people who do not have land or accommodation. We are together’

In reaction to these illegal actions even Nomaindia Mfeketo, the Minister of Human Settlements, could not rule out more recently the possibility that the President’s (and the parliamentarians’) announcement about the land expropriation without compensation has been “misconstrued” by poor Black communities and sent an “incorrect message” to the poor. However much the ANC regime would like to argue, the antagonists point out that illegal land occupation has become an unstoppable movement.36,37 It is with good reason that Collins40 writes40:4:

“No vacant land in the city is safe from occupation”.

In the context of Ramaphosa’s possible indirect instigation of land grabbing,35,36 Mfeketo36 replies36:4:

“Well, that might be. Not only in Cape Town, Gugulethu, Khayelitsha and Waterfall – you’ve seen people who think they have arrived. ‘This is our opportunity to land-grab’.”

Mfeketo36 and Collins’s35 concerns about a troubled future South Africa relates to Ramaphosa’s public announcement on the night of 31 July 2018 at 22:00 on land grabbing. He claimed that Whites hold 87% of the land. He has promised to take it away without compensation, and there is no turn-around for him now without evoking revolution, as Julius Malema warned him.40 Consider Ramaphosa’s main argument of land expropriation in his speech to Black professionals at a September 2018 business breakfast in Pietermaritzburg41:4:

“Happen it shall, whether people like it or not; it is going to happen”.

He promised that the ANC regime only wanted41:4: “…an equal balance in land ownership because an alleged 87% of South Africa’s land had been given before 1994 to a minority population (Whites).”

However, the rest of the speech reveals confusion about what balance would entail41:4: “We are saying that the equation has to be balanced, and because we are balanced people and we are not mad, we are going to do it in a responsible manner, but we are not going to turn away from making sure it does happen.”

The antagonists read much (and not always positive) into Ramaphosa’s remark that: “…we are balanced people, we are not mad, we are going to do it in a responsible way”.41

The prominent question for the antagonists is: If Ramaphosa and his inner group are so balanced, why do they need an urgent change to Section 25 and why did Ramaphosa ignore the outcome of the parliamentary commission’s testing of the public’s opinion on the matter? The antagonists interpret this kind of autocratic behaviour by Ramaphosa as intentional invitation of revolutionary thinking and behaviour. His political revolutionary arrogance is visible when he says41:4:

Land expropriation without compensation is going to happen whether South Africans, US President Donald Trump and the UN General Assembly like it or not,

and:

I am going to explain it without any fear and I am going to say: ‘This is us. Take us or leave us’.

Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi42, the leader of the Inkhata Freedom Party (IFP), referred to the above remarks as an act of blunt disrespect for parliament, while the FW de Klerk foundation42 highlighted Ramaphosa’s abuse of the national broadcaster. He made the announcement as the leader of a political party (president of the ANC) but made it seem as if he was doing it as President of South Africa via the parliament. This reflects the different governmental setups of South Africa since 1994: 1) up to the end of Zuma’s reign there was a tripartite setup with a Zupta grouping under Zuma (highest), followed by Luthuli House (middle) and parliament (lowest), while now 2) the Ramaphosa government has a bipartite setup, driven at the highest level by Luthuli House’s ANC NEC, with the parliament powerless on the lowest level. This spells the presence of chronic anarchy, not only reflected by the delinquent behaviour of the poor and landless Blacks, but also the behaviour rooted in the power of the ANC elite.42

The antagonists point out that they have heard this kind of rhetoric of saying one thing and doing the opposite, from autocrats like Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Nicolás Maduro. Ramaphosa and his elite speak on behalf of the people, but they echo the autocratic and revolutionary speak of the pre-1994 ANC.27,42

The above, in the view of the antagonists, signals the arrival of the final, official stage of land grabbing. It reverts to the unruliness that characterised the ANC as a revolutionary organisation. Returning to symbolically speaking of the injustice of land ownership is impossible in 2018. ANC radicals like the MK veterans now want action. Ramaphosa’s36 early warning36:4: “We are not going to accept land grabs”, had become empty words as protesters (who belong to his group) not only said they are going to practice land grabbing, but did it36:4:

“We have taken our land. Don’t worry about building us houses, we will build our own. Just give as water”.

Most of all, Ramaphosa now promotes this behaviour with his latest public remarks on land grabbing. Any future efforts to stop the radical ideology of dramatic land reform have become impossible: he himself preaches it. The antagonists indicate that there are various other radical actions of the ANC regime that promote illegal land grabbing and that disempower White farmers on their own land. The Extension of Security of Tenure Act for instance works against White farmers. This Act specifically provides for security of tenure by regulating farm occupation. It describes the rights of farm dwellers when facing eviction and provides recourse when they are evicted by White farmers. The antagonists see this piece of legislation as another step towards forcing land redistribution by reducing the rights of the legal owner and making eviction costly. In many cases this poses a risk to the property and the life of the legal owner.43

The Ramaphosa regime finds itself, as the Chávez-Maduro brotherhood in Venezuela did, within a context of empowered autocrats, opportunists, psychopaths and crooks, as a journalist reports44:16:

“It was only a matter of time before the total disregard for the law and the constitution that was shown by our leaders in recent years trickled down to the masses. The media exposed countless allegations of wrongdoing – including the blatant looting by the Gupta family and their associates. But no one has been sent to prison.”

The antagonists feel that the foundations have been laid for anarchy and the destruction of the socio-economic and political order. Ramaphosa’s land expropriation only adds to the chaos.44

The current total disregard for the law and the Constitution has its origins in Zuma’s compromise of credible institutions of law enforcement. The editor45 of the Sunday Times wrote on 26 August 201845:20:

“The hawks were heavily compromised during the looting period, and led by buffoon. The same with the National Prosecuting Authority, led by a lame sheep who had no clue what it meant to use prosecutorial powers.”

The Zondo Commission of Inquiry has shown that there is more than enough to prosecute several looters of the state coffers, but the new Ramaphosa regime has taken no action.45

The uncontrollability of the masses is also reflected in the sudden resurgence (August 2018) of xenophobia (a reminiscent of the explosion of xenophobic violence in May 2008) in the trade sectors in Soweto and other Gauteng townships. It has led to at least four deaths and the looting of the shops of many foreign shopkeepers, forcing them to flee. What is worrying in this specific context is the murderous aggression directed at Black non-South Africans (an identity class that includes the Whites as so-called colonists) and the ANC regime’s failure to do something about these behaviours. The editorial46 of the Sunday Times reflects as follows46:24:

“Successfully prosecutions are few, as police stand idly by, often doing little more than helping shop owners escape the wrath of the mob. It is a blight on a democratic SA.”

The researcher Jean Pierre Misago47 of the African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits University’s conclusion on the base of these Soweto attacks is hair-raising47:12:

Communities find different reasons for attacks. They mobilise people by feeding them stories that are not necessarily correct.

This is a clear case of xenophobia violence. In previous instances WhatsApp messages calling for violence have originated from local business associations, whose members want to get rid of foreign competition.

For the antagonists Misago47 hits the spot with his identification of ethnic crimes and the bad intentions of people who have failed to compete and then fell back on anarchic behaviour, like land and asset grabbing. Consider the xenophobic remark directed at foreign Black shop owners by Rose Nkosi, the president of the South African Spaza and Tuckshop Association (SASTA), accusing them of “creaming our people”. Members of SASTA even marched to the office of Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba, demanding that he stop foreigners running spaza shops.47

A Somali, Abdi Sala48, whose shop was plundered for the fourth time in seven years in Soweto, cut the xenophobia of South Africa to the bone48:12:

“[Black] South Africans are spoilt. When the electricity goes off they loot, if they don’t have water they loot, [if they are unhappy about] no jobs then they rob the shops.”

The antagonists see the intended grabbing of White land by the ANC elite is just looting, equally to that of foreigners’ spaza shops. The ANC regime has become spoilt by the ease of their political self-enrichment since 1994.

The antagonists do not doubt that the same xenophobia awaits them if land grabbing under the guardianship of Ramaphosa is allowed to continue without direct and fierce resistance from the government.9,47 The editorial46 of the Sunday Times of 2 September is further very informative46:24:

“Looting is usually a sign of a society in an advanced state of social decay, suggesting rising public desperation and a breakdown in law and order.”

In this context the question of the antagonists is relevant: What are land grabbing other than looting and the destruction of law and order in South Africa? And what else is looting and the breakdown of law and order than anarchy?46

3.4. Mbeki’s ANC of 1994 versus Ramaphosa’s ANC of 2018

The arrival of Jacob Zuma and thereafter Cyril Ramaphosa as presidents of the ANC, making them at the same time also the presidents of the Republic of South Africa, introduced a new climate of political and judicial estrangement from the “old” ANC with leaders such as Thabo Mbeki. The radicalism that arrived after the ousting of the corrupted Jacob Zuma seems to be radiated by Luthuli House, which has almost become the only and highest policy- and decision-making body in the country. Former Jacob Zuma and his post-2018 ANC NEC are still quite central to this radicalism. The public often think of this radicalism as coming from the younger generation (with a root like Julius Malema), but this is not true. It is instigated and fuelled by the older, rigid ANC leadership who grew up in the old but now mostly outdated Russian political mentality of extreme Marxism (although it is now becoming more reminiscent of fascism). The present issue around land ownership reflects this radicalism. There is suddenly extreme discrimination against the Whites as a minority racial group, together with prominent fascistic behaviour reflected specifically by some of the ANC’s top leaders in the selective execution of this racism and discrimination. (This political ideology stands parallel to China’s extreme discriminative behaviours and manhandling of its various minority groups that the world comfortably ignores. Note here the intimate relationship between the ANC elite and the Chinese regime).46

Revolution and liberation, used to obtain political power and self-enrichment, are still central to the thinking of the likes of Jacob Zuma, as it was in the 1960s. The schizophrenic ANC cabinet of 2019 Ramaphosa’s constant efforts to please the older revolutionary ANC leaders in his NEC, makes the ANC of 2019 a totally different entity than the 1994 party that introduced democracy to all South Africans for the first time. Munusamy49 presents the antagonists with a good guideline in this context when she says49:22:

“We are stuck with the same old problems because we are stuck with the same old leaders in the same old electoral system”.

Land grabbing in this context is thus not a surprise, but the normal way of governing. Indeed, the antagonists postulate, it would have been the way some of the ANC leaders of 1994 went about if they had a free hand at the time.49

The following three subdivisions compare the ANC of 1994 with the ANC of 2019. The sections examine: 1) the schizophrenic ANC cabinet of 2019; 2) a farewell to the Freedom Charter of 1955; and 3) a new Ramaphosa and his new ANC.

3.4.1. The schizophrenic ANC cabinet of 2018-2019

Reflecting on Ramaphosa’s present aggressive and conflicting behaviour, specifically with reference to Whites and land expropriation, Munusamy49 takes the antagonists back into the past by reflecting the prominent role players who created a schism between the ANC’s present and past49:22:

“When Ramaphosa made changes to former president Jacob Zuma’s cabinet at the end of February [2018] he retained the configuration of portfolios and fired 10 ministers. He kept some of the worst-performing members, ostensibly to avoid causing too much turmoil within the ANC by purging the Zuma faction.”

But, in 2018 things became worse for the antagonists as the Zuma faction successfully reassembled with the controversial and politically stained Ace Magashule as ANC secretary-general. He quickly repositioned himself as a replacement for Ramaphosa, should the Zuma faction succeed with a campaign to re-establish Zuma and his cronies in the ANC. This is where good politics and sound economics stumble: the Zuma faction is still revolutionary and they target the masses with misleading and hostile political scripts. The Zuma faction at Luthuli House and in the Ramaphosa cabinet is using the country’s old electoral system to strengthen and to spread their outdated Marxist radical ideology and to re-profile the ANC as a liberation organisation for poor Blacks (while opportunistic enrich them selves at the coats of these poor) . Absolute loyalty to the ANC with the interest of the country in second place is a big part of this ideology.49 It makes the entry of honourable and patriotic leaders with progressive political and economic ideas very difficult, as Munusamy49 reflects49:22:

“There is little prospect of fresh, talented and upstanding leaders who are making strides in other sectors of society entering public office because the political space is so toxic and dominated by the same old faces.”

The end result, posit the antagonists, is that South African politics has become “hollow and acrimonious”, returning the same (many times corrupted and radical) people to parliament, over and over, to take the party on wrong political paths to fulfil these politicians’ opportunistic and delinquent aims and needs.49

The South African electoral system offers the ANC as a party and individual politicians the opportunity to stay on in leadership positions for any length of time. At the same time it offers them the opportunity to promote conflict and revolutionary ideas via an untouchable circle of deviant MPs and MPLs, as reflected by the untouchability of Jacob Zuma. The antagonists believe that if this system had been improved, the changes of the ANC to be in power in 2019 would have been zero. Leaders like Zuma, Ramaphosa or Magashule would never have been appointed in executive political positions. It is only the South African courts and judicial commissions that could break up many of these political evils resulting from the failed electoral system. However, the faulty electoral system is still with us, serving the Zuma faction (and the Ramaphosa faction) and their radicalism (and this will happen during and after the 2019 election), favouring a specific leader with specific cronies. This dilemma of political power within the ANC since 1994 is well illustrated for the antagonists by the intended land grabbing plan of the ANC elite. The radicals in favour of land grabbing are uncontrollable by the electorate from the outside. They can ignore their voters’ wishes and demands in terms of the present false democratic method of voting in parliament, seen as representatives of the people.49

Munusamy49 very precisely describes this failed system that led to the autocratic rule of South Africa since 1994 by a fascist ANC government49:22:

The country has not grappled with the prospect of electoral reform, even though the current system has proved inadequate in terms of public accountability. The proportional representation system means that MPs and MPLs are accountable to party bosses rather than to the electorate. The Zuma years showed how difficult it is to hold presidents accountable when they are protected by their party.

Mcebisi Jonas50, a former deputy finance minister, ANC member and a presidential investment envoy openly challenged the political ills of the ANC. “To save the South African democracy requires focus on its people and their interests and not the political party”, writes Jonas50:22. The presence of populism and revolutionism, as reflected by the Ramaphosa regime with its uncontrolled land grabbing policy, has the tendency to amplify a vicious cycle of declining legitimacy in governance, reduced investment, rising unemployment and increased social tension, says Jonas50. For him the present societal crisis in South Africa under the reign of the present ANC came about because the ANC lost its moral, ethical and political integrity. As an entity they need a positive turn-about, they should even be forced to such a turning by the public50:22:

“Civil society mass action and activism against corruption tended to be about fixing the ANC”.

Jonas50 posits further50:22:

“But we must also acknowledge that our nation has lost its way. SA is at a crossroads. One path follows current trends – rent-seeking, corruption, declining state legitimacy, reduced investment, economic stagnation, inequality band social tensions”.

Jonas50 says that when it comes to standing for the interests of citizens, democracy and the country against the interests of the party (which in many cases represents the masked agendas of corrupted leaders), the interests of the people should come first. The antagonists fully agree. Jonas’s guidelines for political correctness and warning of a growing decay of law and order, is clear50:22:

“We all have a responsibility to stabilize our democracy and chart a new economic path. This needs a new agenda and orientation in civil society, premised on the fact that in every revolution, the people are primary – everything else is secondary.”

This includes the false patriotism and false love for the people while the integrity of the leader in question is already compromised by a personal and political pathology of sole self-enrichment and -empowerment. The masked agendas behind the intended land expropriation without compensation are undoubtedly often anchored in personal and political pathology, making it unstoppable as the delinquent leader gains more power. The antagonists fear that it is no longer possible to save the democracy, especially given the ANC’s courting of China and Russia.50

Thabo Mbeki51 comments on the above dynamic in a 30-page covenant, denunciating land expropriation without compensation. The document is not only immensely informative about the present identity of the ANC, but is also shocking as it shows how the ANC as an initially progressive party for all South Africans has deteriorated in only a decade. It has become a racist party; corrupt to its core and focused on the progress a small group of Blacks (This political manoeuvre stripped the ANC of its hard-fought political integrity, putting it fully into the league of the despotic and racial National Party of pre-1994 South Africa). Mthombothi51 refers to these 30 pages offered by Mbeki as the Mbeki intervention on land grabbing.51 He writes as follows in this regard51:21:

“It’s almost as if he’s saying those in charge of the organization [ANC] neither know what they’re doing nor understand the implication of their actions”.

The antagonists are well aware of the possible impact of the plans of the schizophrenic ANC cabinet of 2019 on the future rights of Whites as land owners. The antagonists feel that they have much to fear.

3.4.2. A farewell to the Freedom Charter of 1955

Putting his arguments, opinions and viewpoint on the ANC’s current political delinquency in perspective, Thabo Mbeki51 charts the evolution of the ANC as an organisation from its founding in 1912 and reflects prominent events in its history. The drafting of the Freedom Charter in Kliptown in 1955 stands out, as do the breakaway of the Africanists in 1958 and the expulsion of the Gang of Eight in 1969, events that have shaped the ANC to unite all South Africans specific under a non-racial and non-discriminative policy as guided by the Freedom Charter. Mthombothi51 points out that Mbeki bases his view of the wrongness of the expropriation of land without compensation from Whites on two fundamental prescriptions in the Freedom Charter, namely 1) South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and White; and 2) that the land shall be shared among those who work it. With land grabbing, both these prescriptions will be violated. Mbeki responds51:21:

“If the ANC abandons these two principles and strategic positions”, he says: “…it must accept that it is turning its back on its historical position as ‘the parliament of the people’”.

In this context the expropriation of land from one national group without compensating them to redistribute it to another national group is a radical departure from the traditional ANC and its prescription to trustworthy policies, cemented into its culture over 105 years. Mthombothi51 reflects as follows on Ramaphosa’s policy on land ownership (in conflict with the Charter)51:21:

“SA belongs to all who live in it, black and white, except as this relates to land”, and “All national groups are equal before the law, except as this concerns land”.

The Freedom Charter’s land clause, dated 1955, is not the only guidance Mbeki had for his political arguments on racial freedom and race-free property ownership. The clear declaration of 1955 is also reaffirmed by an ANC document issued after the historic conference in Tanzania in 1969, making it clear that the ANC was cognisant that the redistribution of land would include all race groups, writes Tabane52:6:

“It makes bold to say that the restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended and all lands shall be open to ownership and use by all people irrespective of race.”

Mbeki’s recent pamphlet is clear of the “second phase of transition” ideology that is driving the present Ramaphosa land grabbing initiative. The insecurity of the Ramaphosa faction is evident from the personal attack on Mbeki because he dared to doubt their lack of knowledge about the ANC’s history and principles and their lack of integrity. The infective language of the secretary-general of the ANC when he called on Mbeki “to shut up” shows where the ANC leadership is in 2019. Tabane brings us back to reality when he posits52:6:

“The current position is at best misguided and at worst a demonstration of the loss of its moral compass by the ANC – and the fact that it is purely fictional to consider the ANC a leader of society anymore.”

Looking closely at Mbeki’s pamphlet, it is clear for the antagonists that the current ANC’s character has changed, as did its mission at the recent 54th national conference. As a party it has transformed to where Jacob Zuma has long wanted it, namely an exclusively Black party, recognising it self that it does not represent all the people of South Africa anymore. Where the “old” ANC always regarded itself as the absolute opposite of the Apartheid NP that divided people along racial lines, there is now a “new” ANC that is dividing people along racial lines. There is no hope that the current ANC would change back to 1994, recalling its new 2018 policy on land grabbing. The ANC has changed permanently because the country’s political terrain has changed drastically. It has become radical, making it the home of selfish, opportunistic and political radicals who lack the conscience of the cadres of the “old” ANC. After testing the politics for 24 years, the ANC has become a Black NP that cannot recognise its own 1955 roots. It’s a new political party with a new vision and mission, the old name just remained. This outcome spells doom for Whites in general, and White land owners specifically, according to the antagonists.51,52

Mthomboth51 puts words to this state of affairs with his decisive conclusion on the “new” ANC51:21:

It’s now operating in a different setting. It is no longer waging a thankless liberation war away in the deserts of exile, but it’s now back home in the lap of luxury and in charge of the most sophisticated economy on the continent. It’s no longer led by the selfless, wise old men and women who sacrificed everything for the good of all, but it’s now controlled by BEE types, shysters, a thug or two and the odd murderer, all in it for a slice of the action. Greed now trumps selflessness.

Whites, the antagonists say, must note Mthombothi’s51 unwritten conclusion: they can expect much more political delinquency from Ramaphosa (or from Ace Magashule, if he and the Zuma faction successfully oust Ramaphosa in 2019 and redeploy Ramaphosa in a subordinate role to Luthuli House). Ramaphosa’s actions, especially with regard to land grabbing, can ultimately be much worse than Zuma’s endeavours.50-53

3.4.3. The new Ramaphosa and his new ANC

Munusamy’s51 description of what is wrong with the “new” ANC offers two warnings. Firstly, the expectations of the poor and landless Blacks will never be met. The leaders of the new ANC have other intentions with the land they want to confiscate. Secondly, it does not matter how failed and corrupted the whole exercise of land grabbing turns out, the antagonists should accept that land expropriation without compensation is here to stay as long as the “new” ANC rules. This can only change if the ANC loses at the ballot box. Munusamy49 is clear49:22:

How do we find the path to basic human decency and morality when we surrender our country to an endless cycle of power-drunk, greedy people who exploit our vulnerabilities and have no desire to help the people they serve?

In the cabinet, in parliament, in provincial government and in municipalities, there are too many people who see their positions as entitlement to wealth and perks.

Unless there is a complete overhaul of society and the political system, there is little chance of the deadwood being cast out and inspirational, resourceful and courageous leaders rising.

When the ANC radicalism is examined more closely, it is clear that their growing political relationship with autocratic Russia and China is a crucial element. These countries were the ANC’s best companions during Apartheid. Although the ANC leaders see South Africa as the opposite of China when it comes to human rights and the suppression of individual freedom and human engineering to suit communism, the ANC’s outdated version of communism and their autocratic behaviour, including land grabbing, make the two twins. The ANC masks this with false friendly and opportunistic contact with democracies like the US, Japan, Europe, in an effort to profile “democracy”. When Ramaphosa announced his land grabbing intention he first visited China to obtain “approval”, which he of course “received” indeed, while at the same time he dared South African Whites, the UN and Trump to test his right to make a radical decision on the matter. Since 1994 the ANC has slowly decreased contact with democracies like Europe, the US and Japan while they made friends with political radicals, not only China and Russia, but Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Brazil (and even Libya under the late Kaddafi).49-56

Under Ramaphosa China is, as under the Zuma regime, selectively respecting South Africa’s sovereignty in economic relations and interests. Munusamy and Mbeki are wrong to expect a positive overhaul of Ramaphosa politics. These politics were already “overhauled” by China and Russia into political, social and economic radicalism where the racial factor of the White man is central. Ramaphosa and his cronies indeed see a “White problem” that must be addressed. Julius Malema has found a comrade at last.49-56

The current South Africa of Cyril Ramaphosa and his cronies are not at ease with White rights, privileges, benefits and riches. Land expropriation without compensation ignores the ANC’s founding manifesto. The ANC has lost its golden past. This makes the ANC elders like Thabo Mbeki and most of the Whites strangers in South Africa.

The antagonists believe, as Mbeki illustrates, that the radical ANC under Ramaphosa and his followers will take the last pieces of land from the back pockets of Whites in the near future.

3.5. Lies and myths versus facts and truths

The antagonists see multiple facts, lies, myths and truths that surround the ANC elite’s rejection of the 1994 dispensation’s land redistribution programme. So far most of these lies and myths remain unchallenged. The ANC regime’s perspective and untested allegations to justify their right to take land should be addressed, evaluated and be put into perspective. This is done in the following eight subdivisions, namely: 1) the people’s dissatisfaction with the 1994–2018 dispensation’s land redistribution; 2) Blacks prefer land occupations above the option of financial compensation for land lost between 1913 and 1994; 3) a large group of aspiring Black farmers is waiting for rural land; 4) the ANC has a clear expropriation and redistribution plan for the greater Black South African community; 5) there is an urgent need to balance the racial demographics of the country’s land and home ownership by placing Blacks in traditionally White areas; 6) the ANC has since 1994 successfully guided poor Blacks to financial independence; 7) Blacks are indigenous South Africans and Whites are European settlers; and 8) the Tsar and Stalin’s collective farm projects in rural Russia were great successes.

3.5.1. The people’s dissatisfaction with the 1994–2019 dispensation’s land redistribution

The ANC has publically claimed that the 1994 to 2019 land redistribution programme was characterised by incompleteness and dissatisfaction and that the programme did not deliver on the promise of transferring the prescribed land to Blacks as agreed by the 1994 dispensation and the Constitution. In their view, this makes land grabbing an absolute need. However, Opperheimer3 offers evidence to the contrary. Opperheimer3 posits that according to the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), the Land Claims Court has resolved more than 95% of the claims that have arisen in the past 23 years in terms of the 1994 dispensation’s prescriptions. More than 1.8 million individuals have received compensation in the form of pay-outs or land.3,58 Omri van Zyl58, the executive director of Agri SA, puts the amount paid towards redistribution at R45 billion and the amount paid towards land reform at R43 billion.

According to Opperheimer3 fewer than 3 500 (out of 76 000) or 5% of the claims remain unresolved. This gives an average of 3 152 claims resolved per annum of the total 73 500 claims successfully addressed since 1994. The still 3 500 outstanding claims will take at most one or two more years to complete (more or less to be completed in 2020) if the present debacle around land expropriation without compensation doesn’t hinder the process. There is no evidence of any incompleteness or dissatisfaction around land transformation as run by the 1994–2019 governments. There is no urgent need or reason to address the remaining 5% of claims with such an “attack” on White land ownership without compensation. The land transformation agreed upon in 1994 has, in the view of the antagonists, basically been completed.3

What is most worrying for the antagonists, given the near completion of the process, is that the ANC suddenly wants to “enlarge the pie” of land ownership at cost of their initial partner, the Whites. This breach of contract by the ANC regime under Ramaphosa needs the attention of the Constitutional Court.3 It is clear for the antagonists that the ANC regime’s claim of dissatisfaction among “the people” in relation to the 1994–2019 dispensation’s land redistribution is without any base. The 1994 to 2019 land reform programme served the people well.

For the antagonists is it clear that the new ANC and its merry men will not be pacified easily. They are into stealing and doing harm to the White farmers. For the opponents the ANC elite’s present intention of land grabbing is only a smokescreen for other future trespasses against Whites.

3.5.2. Land occupation versus financial compensation

With reference to the ANC’s argument that the majority of Blacks prefer land to cash pay-outs, reports showed as early as 2013 that of the roughly 76 000 rural land restitution claims disposed in terms of the described programme as decided by the 1994 agreement, more than 70 000 (91.5%) of the claimants had chosen to take compensation in cash rather than reoccupy the land they had lost. This means that of the 95% cases resolved, the choice of compensation in the form of receiving land per se as a vehicle for compensation, only 8% of the beneficiaries chose to receive land.3

The antagonists’ counter-argument is that the ANC’s recent claim of an absolute need for land for the poor and landless Blacks and for farming per se, is false. This finding means that the 1994 agreement worked well. The antagonists suspect that the land issue is being put forward by the ANC to mask the motives of some Black political leaders and radicals in the ANC. Political delinquency seems central to the whole land expropriation issue. The fact that 92% of Black land claimants did not wish to take back their ancestral land serves as proof for the antagonists that there is no drive for land on the side of the masses.3

For the antagonists there is enough evidence that a transfer of White land to Blacks is not the dramatic political issue of the moment; nor is there evidence of great numbers of Black farmers in rural areas. The resolution of the remaining 5% of cases is almost insignificant and cannot be the reason for the supposed great disappointment with the 1994 to 2018 redistribution programme. The statement of the propagandists that claimants prefer land occupation over and above financial compensation for land lost between 1913 and 1994 can therefore be rejected.3

3.5.3. Aspiring Black farmers waiting for rural land

There is a specific argument that there is an immense need and opportunity for more commercial Black farmers in South Africa’s rural areas. This contradicts the experience of the White farming community and the organised and formal business sector. Their data on land redistribution is often more scientific and analytical, free of emotional rhetoric. The organised farming and formal business sectors fully support land redistribution and underwrite its urgency, but in an orderly manner.3,59,60

The antagonists also point to the fact that replacing White farmers with Black ones will only accommodate a fraction of the poor and landless Blacks, making the whole exercise a failure from day one. A disaster is looming if there is no large-scale job creation outside the agricultural sector for the rest of the 90% of poor and jobless Blacks, whether or not land redistribution comes into effect. The large contingent of unemployed and untrained Blacks is becoming a national disaster that could easily result in anarchy.3,59-61

Exacerbating the problem of the contingent of poor and landless Blacks is the hard fact of a negative growth in the agriculture sector as reflected in September 2018 (-24%). [In this context of negativity, the estimated growth for South Africa for 2018 is between 1.2% and 1.8%, meaning the ANC regime’s economy has stagnated and technically fallen into recession].3,59,60

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has reported in 2018 that Africa’s urban population will double within a generation, contradicting the point of masses of people wanting to occupy rural land. The fact is that Africa’s peasantry is dying off. This phenomenon, as already cited in this subdivision with tested facts, is also present in South Africa. Farming has become one of the less lucrative South Africa careers, and farming has become very expensive and time-consuming. The number of commercial farmers is already on the decrease due to problems such as the cash flow needed for mechanisation and the risks involved in farming.4,51,59,61

The ANC should in fact focus on more urban land for housing for Black working citizens. Ramphele4 points out this reality when she writes4:21:

“The fourth myth is that land restitution is mainly a rural and farming matter. Cape Town, the seat of parliament, exemplifies the cruelty of the failure to redress the spatial geography of apartheid cities.”

It is clear from the above evidence that there is not an immense group of aspiring Black farmers waiting for rural land. It is a false postulation and a myth. The evidence also reflects that even if there was truly a large group awaiting farmland, the farming environment lacks the potential to accommodate them.

3.5.4. The ANC’s plan

The antagonists point out that the ANC regime has failed to offer the public full legal and descriptive details on the land expropriation matter. The whole initiative is driven by and based on Malema and Ramaphosa’s rhetoric, while a simple basic plan on paper remains absent. If expropriation without compensation is really on the cards, how long will the process be? Who will hold the title deeds? How will Black beneficiaries be selected? Will new Black farmers receive funding or mentoring? How will viable and sustainable markets be created? How will the correct produce be selected? How will this affect the short- and long-term food security of the country and what would be the specific role of Black farmers in this regard?3,59-61

This vagueness is worrying, seeing that the ANC’s similar processes of BEE and AAA to uplift the “poor non-Whites” since 1994 could not attain true success and are still in running, seemingly indefinitely. The vagueness of the 1994 programme mostly favoured the ANC elite. The antagonists stress that Ramaphosa has thus far offered only empty emotional and political rhetoric, filled with aggression against Whites. The ANC regime’s knowledge on implementing such a system stops with its various spokespersons’ rhetoric, basically because they are “uneducated, untrained and inexperienced on the complicated processes around land expropriation”.3,59-61

The formal business sector has also requested a guideline and constructive plan from the ANC. Barron63 makes it clear that the political intention of expropriation is one thing, but successful implementation based on sound ethic, business, economic, judicial and cognitive principles, is something total different. Besides that, it can be very complicated and time-consuming, and can be devastating to economic and political stability if it goes awry. Just defining a theoretical framework (hopefully by outside experts) can take up to three years. Implement such a “sound” theoretical plan in practice can takes a further five to ten years. The programme implemented in 1994 has not been concluded after 24 years. This estimate does not even include rejection by the formal business sector or experts if the framework is developed by opportunistic, foolish and short-sighted law-makers and political radicals in the contaminated ANC, EFF and PAC. Verwoerd and his followers attempted similar folly in 1955 with the Tomlinson Commission, which recommended that the best political, social and economic solution for South Africa would be to dismantle Apartheid. The Tomlinson Commission predicted the current dilemma.3,59-61

Barron63 quotes the insights of Professor Mills63, head of the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business on land redistribution63:9:

The government needs to spell out how expropriation without compensation will feed into the National Development Plan and contribute to the overall national development objectives of the country.

What is their priority? Is it land expropriation or creating jobs? Young people living in rural areas want to live in urban areas. They are not interested in farming or land, they want jobs. So what is expropriation without compensation going to do for them? How is it going to bring them jobs?

Hereto Makgoba64 also writes64:21:

“I have not heard anyone [ANC] spell out an overarching vision which takes all the complex practical and emotional factors into account. Nor have I heard a satisfactory answer to the fundamental question: expropriation to do what?”

Ramphele4 refers to the ANC regime failure to offer an appropriate plan of land redistribution as4:21: “…the lack of a national spatial plan due to the lack of political will at all levels of government to tackle land reform”.

The formal farming and business sectors view Ramaphosa’s62 talk of land redistribution (with or without compensation) as unclearly formulated. His guarantees that the outcome will not hurt the economy or foreign investment in the short or long term are unspecific and undoubtedly open to various political and judicial interpretations. The antagonists see either a lack of a sound understanding of basic economics, or the deliberate masking of radicalism. Indeed, Ramaphosa’s hesitation when it comes to making clear decisions and his growing vague rhetoric, signals possible ulterior motives in the view of the antagonists.65

The antagonists and formal business sector fear that land redistribution will hurt the economy, and the ANC’s nonchalance about this worries them. They also feel that it would destabilise racial relations in South Africa to the same extent that Apartheid did.65

3.5.5. Balancing the demography with land ownership

The ANC regime argues that the racial demography of South Africa’s land- and home-ownerships is imbalanced as result of the socioeconomic and political inequality between Whites and Blacks, which the ANC radicals allege is due to the richness and racial privilege of Whites. This wealth inequality is alleged by the ANC regime and propagandists to be responsible for the development of exclusive high-quality White areas and White farmers with better living standards and conditions than that of the Blacks working and living on the farms. The demographics of the country thus reflect a clear division between Blacks and Whites in terms of race and socio-economic classing. For the average Black it is just impossible, because of his/her immense poverty, to break out on his or her own from the impoverished living areas and circumstances and to penetrate the exclusive White areas. In this rich man–poor man model the issue of farmland became mixed up with urban land, making it one issue that could be solved by land expropriation.

In an effort overcome above imbalance of the racial demographics the ANC regime argues that land redistribution without compensation is essential. Free land is the ANC regime’s key to unlock this “White exclusiveness”.

In terms of the imbalanced racial demographics, Opperheimer3 offers counter-evidence. He states, based on research by the IRR, that in 2015 the various racial groups’ ownership of homes was almost perfectly proportional. This postulation by Opperheimer3 is supported by the government’s own recent land audit. Regarding the ownership of property (not farm land), this audit shows racial parity with 49% erven owned by Whites and 46% owned by Blacks. The audit reflects more or less the same ratio for sectional title ownership. This data, argues Opperheimer3, indicate that redistribution, when it includes home ownership per se as a focus point, is unsubstantiated. Opperheimer3 does not feel that the racial demographics of the country need immediate correction through land expropriation. The antagonists see the negative ANC propaganda on racial demographics as a well-planned social engineering initiative by the ANC leadership to support RET and RST, to limit the socioeconomic and political privileges, rights and positions of Whites in greater South Africa and to force the integration of Whites into the greater Black community.3,6

In this context, with the focus on the ANCs discrepancy between Black and White when it comes to ownership, the antagonists point out that although there is unhappiness and discontent with the new South Africa, only 18% of the population’s discontent is about poor accommodation. Opperheimer3 points out that research shows that less than 1% of South Africans were concerned with owing land. For South Africans of all the races there are much more worrying issues. There are indeed three serious matters worrying the public, namely unemployment (40%), lack of and poor service delivery (34%) and poor education (15%). These are all results of the failed ANC regime. For the antagonists it is clear that the ANC regime’s present attack on White “rich” lifestyles as reflected by White living standards, etc. and the ANC’s hostile plans to equalise the “imbalanced demographics between Blacks and Whites”, is nothing else than an effort to cover up their failure as a regime since 1994 to erase unemployment, poor service delivery in Black areas and to improve Black education. The present poverty, unemployment and inequality stem from the ANC regime’s failures and not from imbalanced racial demographics.3,6

In response to the so-called disturbed racial demographics of the country as alleged by the ANC regime and its radicals, the antagonists argue that such disturbed racial demographics is a misrepresentation of the truth for political gain. Opperheimer3 states that only 3% of South Africans are worried about the race factor. Race in relation to the present ownership of land and Black discontent with the general South African political, social and economic situation is insignificant and the ANC gives a false reflection.3

The IRR found that 71% of Blacks (and 74% of Whites) have no concerns about race per se in their daily life. This absence of a desire for land grabbing among ordinary Blacks is further supported by the findings of the Caro Institute in the USA. The main reasons why South Africans are the 5th most depressed and unhappiest people in the world are not racial conflict or racial hate, but unemployment, inflation and high interest rates. For the antagonists this reflect badly on the ANC regime and its elite.3

3.5.6. The ANC has since 1994 successfully guided poor Blacks to financial independence

The ANC has bragged that they have guided poor Blacks to independence, implying that the ANC regime has changed the lives of the poor and landless Blacks for the better since 1994 in terms of basic living standards.

The basic question for the antagonists is: does the ANC truly develop the poor so that become self-sufficient enough to buy daily food and to afford basic accommodation, schooling and medicine?

Victory Research’s recent report is very significant here. It reflects that a great number of South Africans (Black and White) feel that their basic needs are not fulfilled in any way by the ANC regime. They not only feel that certain basic services are lacking, but that it has become unaffordable for them to afford these services. Unemployment is prominent. This has led many poor Blacks (an estimate 29-million) not having food on the table or basic accommodation on most days.67

The respondents (seemingly from the middle class and thus less exposed to the extreme poverty and living conditions of poor and landless Blacks) who took part in Victory Research show that their top concerns and dissatisfaction (measured by percentage with satisfaction 0% and dissatisfaction 100%) with the ANC regime centres on unemployment (47%), crime and security (20%), corruption (18%), poor education (18%), accommodation (14%), basic service delivery (12%), poor healthcare (8%) and high living costs (7%).67 It is clear that there is not a White-Black issue here. If the middle class feels this negative about the ANC, how must the poorest feel?

When looking to research reflecting on the living conditions and “satisfaction” of the poor and landless Blacks, it contradicts the ANC regime’s view that they have empowered the Black community. This data make the ANC’s claim of “doing good” to the poor and landless Blacks seems absurd.68,69

Derby68 reflects that in 2018 the financial circumstances of most South African households, not only the poor, were worrying. Prominent is the fact that the percentage of households in South Africa that is receiving at least one form of a social grant, is in the high 40% region, or 17 million persons (with 55% South Africans living in abject poverty). This is a direct outcome of down-sizing mines and other industries, causing unemployment, as well as the overall unemployment culture of the country (officially nearly 30%, unofficially 50%–60%). The unemployment is so severe that many people with good training are left jobless. The ANC regime’s failure to develop entrepreneurship and SMEs to create new jobs, especially for the lower socioeconomic and less trained classes is a major cause. The fact is that the contingent of jobless (and thus mostly foodless) people is growing daily, forcing at least 40% of the total population into financial dependence, poverty and indirect begging from the state (who in reality should generate work opportunities and income to make these people independent citizens).68,69

The extent to which the absolute poverty is starting to overwhelm even the South African middle class is evident from the need for the National Credit Amendment Bill in terms of which consumers earning less than R7 000 a month and with unsecured debt up to R50 000 will be absolved of their debt if they are deemed highly indebted by the National Credit Regulator.68,69

The spreading lawlessness and disorder is proof that unemployment is pushing people to the edge. Theft of food and money to buy food has increased. Central to these many asocial and anti-social behaviours stands what perpetrators see as the ANC regime’s betrayal of their rightful (and which the ANC promised them at every election) claim to basic services such as clean water, medical services, work, basic housing, etc. Dissatisfaction is becoming evident from unrest around the country. The growth and intensity of the masse dissatisfaction with the ANC regime are observable in how the initial unrests changed from a clear focus on only poor service delivery, to serious unrest and protests with a focus also on a lack of education, crime and a lack of personal safety, healthcare, transport, the unavailability of plots/land to erect houses and other forms of accommodation. The protests are also increasing in violence.70

The evidence shows that the main focus of these angers is the failure of the ANC regime to deliver on its post-1994 promises and the ANC’s failure to use budgets to aid the landless poor. Angry protesters point who are been caught up in corruption, state capture and the self-enrichment to the ANC regime and its elite at the cost of the poor. Their view is that the ANC regime not only failed as a regime to offer accommodation and land within the boundaries of the 1994 land reform programme, but often just ignored the urgent needs of the poor and landless Blacks. It is important to look at some examples of the behaviour and reactions of people from the Black community on the ANC regime’s failure to take care of their interests. It indeed reflects an outright dislike for the ANC regime and its elite.68-70

The testimony of a tin shack dweller living in a sprawling Durban shantytown, a said Mrs Lindiswa Mhlanga70, about her fantasies “to live in a brick house with windows, walls, bedrooms and perhaps a garden for her children to play” like the ANC elite, is heart-breaking, not only because of the tragedy around it, but also because it most probably going to remain a fantasy. A despairing neighbour of hers, a said Mrs. Tembu Xulu70, gives a poignant description of her utmost despair about her living conditions since the new 1994 democracy when she said in 201870:14:

“I can’t live like this anymore. It’s been 11 years I’m here. We have one room and one bed that eight of us share. What life is this? We have snakes under the shack. I want a life of dignity.”

Blacks are responding on these failures of the ANC with a clear warning to the Ramaphosa regime. S’bu Zikode70, the founding president of the national organisation Abahlali (of which 16 leaders have been killed since 2009 under very suspicious circumstances) which has approximately 50 000 members who are fighting for the rights of the poor and landless in informal settlements, says70:14:

“Many of us have given up hope that there will ever be any change or delivery to our people. What makes us hopeless is that every year the government has a budget announcement and out of those billions, very few communities are benefiting. We know that as long as the ANC is in power, shack dwellers and black people are not going to benefit anything from the government.”

This despair goes deeper than the experience of hopelessness, bringing the unavoidable result of political self-empowerment and lawlessness to the foreground. It is possible that extreme violence directed at the ANC regime is in the making. The antagonists not only consider the failure of the ANC as a party to serve the interests of the poor and landless Blacks, but also the presence of criminal role players inside the ANC regime who trample on the dignity of their poor Black brothers. The poor and landless Black activists highlight the open misuse of the benefits meant for the Black poor by some ANC councillors, instead of helping the homeless Blacks to make them independent citizens who can live a normal life as a worker with an income and a house. Zikode70 is especially succinct in when he reports70:14:

“We believe that many of them eat the money meant for the people. Some of the councillors have told me straight to my face that I am disturbing them from eating. It is their turn to eat. They are there to enrich themselves and it’s obvious. We are reaching a stage where we are saying: ‘Could we accept that we don’t have a government?’”

It would be a mistake to think the hostility of the Black poor and homelessness is limited to speaking out on the matter: their discontent has already moved to militant thinking. We are in a stage of aggressiveness, bordering on militant actions. Zikode’s70 words are prominent as he puts the immediate political decision and destiny of the poor and homeless Blacks on the table against the ANC regime70:14:

If you listen to us carefully, we are no longer talking about homelessness, we are talking about landlessness, the reason being we have accepted that there is no money for housing.

That is why our focus is now on the land question. Can you rather release land for us to see what we can do?

From the onset promises were made and broken, lies were put before truth and money and business were put before human needs. We have been calling for land in our cities for a long time.

Of course we support the call for the expropriation of land without compensation, but it is what we have already doing – it’s what we call land occupation.

It’s really about the redistribution of land from below. People are taking back the land.

Most of the settlements that we have occupied have not been given on a silver plate. People have had to occupy vacant land, because nobody will ever give you land.

Which is why today there are hundreds of casualties.

If you were to ask where all these assassinations and death threats come from: two sources – the police and politicians.

But despite the death threats we are receiving, we will not be silenced.

For Zikode70 there is undoubtedly one immediate dangerous enemy of the poor Blacks in their struggle to survive as humans: the ANC and its favoured elite. This outcome is more than enough evidence that the notion that the ANC has developed the poor and landless Blacks into financially independent and functioning citizens is a lie and a myth.

3.5.7. Blacks are indigenous South Africans and Whites are European settlers

Who are the rightful franchisees of South African land? Which of the Black and White tribes deserve South African land ownership? The current argument of the ANC and EFF is that it is only the Blacks. Most of these statements are purely meant for political opportunism and emotional rhetoric. It also reveals political leaders’ lack of an understanding of the political history of South Africa.

It is thus of great importance to separate myths and lies from the truth to determine who counts as non-indigenous colonists (so called land predators), who counts as true indigenous people (natives) and who are indigenous colonists (foreigners who over time indigenised) to South Africa, writes Louw6. The claim of Blacks as indigenous South Africans and Whites as European settlers, making Blacks the rightful sole owners of the country’s land and the intended land redistribution without compensation by the Blacks justified, should be evaluated.

The pre-1900 South Africans can be divided into six broad racial and ethnic groups, namely the KhoiSan, KhoiKhoi, the Black tribes, the White tribes, the Coloureds and the Asians/Indians/Malays. Louw6 shows that earlier inhabitants (settlers) of South Africa, before the Europeans and Blacks arrived, were undoubtedly the KhoiSan and the KhoiKhoi. The Cape Settlement was infused an Asian/Indian/Malay bloodline and this resulted in a new race in South Africa. It meant that two more peoples over time became indigenous to South Africa, namely the Coloureds and the Asian/Indians/Malay. This unique constellation of South Africa brings into focus the many political clichés of who are the rightfully franchisees of South African soil and who should have South African land ownership.6,71

3.5.7.1. KhoiSan

The KhoiSan were probably the first inhabitants of South Africa. It seems they migrated from central Southern Asia. It is theorised that their migrating resulted from a scarcity of food or as if they were driven out by other stronger races from Asia. The initial tribe split up in three sub-tribes: one group moving south-east to the Malaysian Peninsula, the Philippines and as far as Australia; the second group moving west as far as Spain and the third group moving into North Africa and from there constantly Southwards as result of attacks by the Hamites who were living around the Nile region. Other parts of this third group of KhoiSan moved downwards from the eastern part of Africa, to gather south of the Zambezi after the 1600s, ending up in the Southern African region as far South as the Cape. The KhoiSan are now only present in diminutive numbers, and they are politically and economically disempowerment. They have not made any direct claims to land ownership, although through inbreeding with the Blacks, Coloureds and KhoiKhoi, they can also lay claim to land ownership to a certain extent.6,71

3.5.7.2 KhoiKhoi

The KhoiKhoi probably have their origin as result of a mixture in Somaliland between KhoiSan and Hamites. It seems that they migrated Southwest down into Africa to the region of the Great Lakes, and, after staying several centuries, they moved further Southwards more or less around 600AC, to reach the Orange River where they initially established on the banks of the river and along the West Coast, from Walvis Bay to the Umtamvuna River. Later on they started to split up into smaller tribes, with each an individual name and customs, moving again further Southwards.6,71

Notwithstanding the fact that they were one of the first migrants to establish themselves in South Africa as an ethnic group, the KhoiKhoi have very little impact because of their small numbers and early political marginalisation. In terms of equality and justified human rights of the South African Constitution, they must, as the KhoiSan, be given the right to claim rightful ownership of the South African soil.6,71

3.5.7.3. Indians/Asians/Malays

Indians/Asians/Malays, although late-comers to South Africa as labour to Natal in 1860, have, like all the other races in South Africa, became indigenous to the country. Many of their forefathers or tribal associates were Asian/Indian/Malay female slaves who came to the Cape Refreshment Settlement between 1650 and 1670. Many of these women had children with Whites at the Cape, making the Indians/Asians/Malays rightful claimants together with the Whites to future land ownership. (The direct, first infusion of “non-White blood” into the White parent stock of today’s Afrikaners can be as high as 75%).6,71

It is clear that the Asians/Indians/Malays’ claim to South African land ownership as indigenous people is not limited to their South African identity, but also through their early inbreeding with the Whites and the Coloureds.6,71

3.5.7.4. Coloureds

The vertical biological development of a closed and outcast group of mixed people, mostly excluded from the White nucleus that formed the modern Afrikaners, is surely true as evidenced by the South African Coloureds and other mixed people of today. However, the superficial split between Coloureds and Whites is confirmed by historical evidence of an immense horizontal biological impact of “Coloured blood” on Afrikaners’ genes, contradicting earlier numbers of only 6% to 10.7% of mixed Afrikaner descendants and the separate vertical development of the Coloureds as a separate ethnic group. This brotherhood between White Afrikaners and Brown Afrikaners makes the claims of White Afrikaners on land ownership fully applicable to the Coloureds and vice versa. The further mixing of the Coloureds with KhoiSan, KhoiKhoi and Blacks makes these three groups’ claims on land ownership also fully applicable on the Coloureds and vice versa.6,71

Notwithstanding this birth right and the fact that the Coloureds are the second largest tribe in the country, they are still politically, economically and socially as deprived as in the pre-1994 dispensation.6,71

3.5.7.5. Blacks

The South African Blacks, like the South African Whites, are both comparative newcomers to Southern Africa. The South African Blacks’ probable initial home was Central Asia, from where the moved into Africa en masse, splitting in two: one group moving down to the middle of Africa and the second group moving along the East Coast to reach Sofala in the 10th century. When the Portuguese established themselves on the East Coast, these various East-bound Black groups reached Natal and in the 1650s the area around the Kei River. The middle group of Blacks also moved Southwards to establish themselves in the vicinity of the Vet and Caledon Rivers the 1750s.6,71

After the early First and Second Black Colonisation of South Africa between 1810 and 1840, Blacks become permanent settlers with time and obtained indigenous status (especially through land grabbing, war and the complete termination of their opponents).6,71

The constant reference of Black politicians to the Afrikaner as an “alien, murderous colonist” in South Africa, or to the Whites as the only colonist in South Africa, is false. Louw’s6 study shows that it is an undeniable fact that the current Black population are also foreign to South Africa and indeed in the same boat as the Afrikaners.

The South African Blacks have no more right to land ownership than the KhoiSan, KhoiKhoi, Coloureds, Asian/Indians/Malays, Whites and Afrikaners. Land redistribution can only be executed in their favour in terms of their shared indigenousness with the KhoiSan, KhoiKhoi, Coloureds, Asian/Indians/Malays, Whites and Afrikaners due to a time factor of living in South Africa. Their portion of land to be received in terms of the intended land expropriation project can only be calculated and determined based on the total South African population versus the ratio of the KhoiSan, KhoiKhoi, Coloureds, Asian/Indians/Malays, Whites and Afrikaners. Their present claims to land and the intention of land redistribution without compensation, is land grabbing and terrorism, similar to what their forefathers did when they settled here as foreigners.6,71

3.5.7.6. Whites and the Afrikaner tribe

The popular view that the “Afrikaner” is a unique and “pure” White race that had its origins at the Cape Settlement in 1652 is wrong. Miscegenation and a multiracial component involving the South African Indians/Asians, Coloureds, KhoiKhoi and Blacks is a fact.6,71

The multiracialism of today’s Afrikaners makes their legal claims to land ownership of the South African soil equal to that of South Africa’s Asian/Indians, KhoiSan, KhoiKhoi, Coloureds and Blacks. The Afrikaners have become indigenous, as did the Asian/Indians, KhoiSan, KhoiKhoi, Coloureds and Blacks, to South Africa.6,71

The radical Black politicians’ claim that Blacks are indigenous South Africans and that Whites are settlers, is false and misleading. Indians/Asians, Coloureds, KhoiKhoi, Blacks and Whites are all foreigners (migrants) to South Africa who became indigenous over time.

3.5.8. The claim that the Tsar and Stalin’s collectivist farming projects in rural Russia were great successes

The radicals in the ANC often argue that the communist countries’ form of land ownership could work here. This is especially true for Julius Malema of the EFF who believes in the full nationalisation of all South Africans assets. When one looks critically at the similarities between the present-day political intentions of the ANC elite of South Africa and that of the Russian regimes as reflected by the Russian political history between the 1860s and 1950s, the similarities are startling: the same political radicalism, masked agendas, misuse of the problem of poverty and landlessness for own political and personal enrichment by the elites, the intentional lack of a clear land reform plan, political revenge on the previous beneficiaries of the old regimes, disrespect for the civil rights of individuals and for humanity, and the outcome of an even worse political end results. In both cases the end result of the land ownership issue was either revolution(s) or the possibility of revolution.4,6

It is therefore important to the antagonists to test the notion that the Tsar and Stalin’s collectivist farming projects in rural Russia were great successes and interventions that could be applied to the land expropriation model of the ANC regime. The historian Professor Niall Ferguson73 gives us great insight into this matter with his comprehensive book on the world’s political history titled: The War of the World. Ferguson73 writes73:198:

In the summer of 1931, in his seventy-fifth year, the playwright George Bernard Shaw paid a nine-day visit to the Soviet Union. What he saw — or thought he saw — was a workers’ paradise under construction.

Here was a symbol of the apparently realizable dream of state socialism, and Western visitors like Shaw reacted ecstatically. They had seen the future, and — compared with the apparently defunct capitalist system — it seemed to work.

Granted an audience with Stalin himself, Shaw was ‘disarm[ed]… by a smile in which there is no malice but also no credulity… [He] would pass…for a romantically dark Georgian chieftain’. In an impromptu speech in Leningrad, Shaw declared enthusiastically: ‘If this great communistic experiment spreads over the whole world, we shall have a new era in history…If the future is the future as Lenin foresaw it, then we may all smile and look forward to the future without fear’. ‘Were I only 18 years of age,’ he told journalists on his way back to England, ‘I would settle in Moscow tomorrow.’

Shaw73 elaborated further in 1931, writes Ferguson73:198-199:

“Stalin has delivered the goods to an extent that seemed impossible ten years ago, he rhapsodized. ‘Jesus Christ has come down to earth. He is no longer an idol. People are gaining some sort of idea of what would happen if He lived now.”

But Shaw was not the only famous and important Brit who was mesmerised by the communists’ benevolence to the poor in the 1930s: with him on his “tour of believing” were also Nancy and Waldorf Astor, and the Marquis of Lothian, Philip Kerr.73

Shaw’s73 “goodness” that came to the peasants (the poor and landless Russians) in the countryside under Stalin is now also seemingly on the way for poor and landless Blacks in South Africa. However, it is important to note that a limited form of land redistribution already took place in Russia under the Tsar with his abolition of serfdom in the 1860s and the transfer of land by a form of land ownership to them.73

The bid by the Tsar to build a new class of “thrifty peasant proprietors” by means of a form of land redistribution, had limited success for various reasons. The specific belief that their “independence” from the rich and the mega-landowners and their own say in agriculture would transform the poor and landless Russians into successful commercial farmers overnight, failed. Although the peasants’ input with agricultural produce boosted the Russian economy, it just introduced another form of inequality. More or less 80% of ordinary Russians living in the countryside remained poor and deprived of benefits and dependent on the Tsar’s whims. Although the living standards of the peasants improved, they were still far from those living in towns and cities. The backlash of the Tsar’s abuse of the poor and landless under the mantle of their economic and political empowerment, upliftment and independence only to enrich his elite circle, doomed the project to a failure right from the start. In real life the masses of poor and landless Russians gained nothing.73 Ferguson writes73:14:

“The hope that they [80% of the population] would gain land as well as freedom among the peasants by the abolition of serfdom had been disappointed.”

What becomes clear is the absence of a definitive plan and the focused intention to uplift the poor and landless Russians to empower them and not only the doings of the corrupted Tsar-elite.73

The vagueness of Ramaphosa’s plan of who would receive land, the allocation of deeds and what would be expected from these individuals, seems to be conflict in the making. In the Russia of the 1860s there were also different (often opposing and discriminative) socio-economic groups (as in the present-day South Africa), aggravating the battle for land ownership. This not only laid the foundation for immediate political conflict in Russia, but also a revolution. Ferguson73 reflects on this infighting73:14-15:

“A disgruntled peasantry, a sclerotic aristocracy, a radicalized but impotent intelligentsia and a capital city with a large and volatile populace: these were precisely the combustible ingredients the historian Alexis de Tocqueville had identified in 1780 France [and its revolution]. A Russian revolution of rising expectations was in making…”

It is more than clear from the Russian tsar’s failed experiment that neither extreme land grabbing nor orderly land redistribution bring immediate socio-economic and financial solutions and satisfaction for the poor and landless, especially when their numbers are large and the liberation regime’s intentions with land expropriation is based on political delinquency.

The above Russian experiment on land expropriation did not stop with the later doomed Tsar regime. It was later continued by the dictator and political delinquent Josef Stalin as president of Russia.

Stalin73 lends another dimension to the presence of the peasantry and its grievances inside the greater Russian community in the 1930s. Described in a differences: the misuse of the peasants through their “grievances” (here in South Africa the antagonists refer to this Stalin opportunism in terms of Ramaphosa’s politicking as the “people wants, needs and demands”), to promote and to benefit exclusively Stalin’s elite’s interests and sick political visions.

As in South Africa at present, the politics of socialism all over Russia was Stalin’s solution to address the peasant problem and their upliftment via “land ownership and wealth”. But, “What Stalin meant by ‘socialism in one country’ was a new revolution – an economic revolution that he, the self-styled ‘man of steel’ would lead”, writes Ferguson73:199. The “public” outcome of Stalin was one of “promoting” the interests of the poor and landless peasants living in the countryside (filled with grievances about their living conditions from the time of the Tsar), while in reality he killed them off to promote solely his own self-interests through military force and the greater Russian economy needed for military power via the agricultural economics. His economic revolution of masse industrialisation, secondary to social transformation, offered Stalin the opportunity of misusing the peasantry as the new proletariat (especially in the urban areas) to keep him and his elite in power without really awarding them significant political and economic power. It also limited the political and economic empowerment and aspirations of the peasantry still living in the countryside, tilling the soil for the Stalin elite’s benefitting. Ferguson posits73:199:

“By forcing a huge transfer of manpower and the resources from the countryside into the cities, he aimed to enlarge at a stroke the Soviet proletariat on which the Revolution was supposedly based.”

At the same time Stalin attacked the surviving elements of the pre-revolutionary society – “…former capitalists, nobles, merchants, officials, priests and kulaks with all their class sympathies, anti-pathies, traditions, habits, opinions, world views and so on…”, who he saw as remaining threats to his regime, writes Ferguson.73:199 Stalin’s policy of collectivisation of the Russian agricultural sector and its people was only superficially an attempt to improve Soviet agrigulture73:199:

“Its true goal was the destruction of the class enemy – to be precise, ‘the liquidation of the kulaks as a class’”.

Ferguson73 brings us nearer to the above events when he points out73:200:

“Predictably, the consequence of the systematic annihilation of any farmer suspected of being a kulak was not economic growth but one of the greatest man-made famines in history. As Party functionaries descended on the countryside with orders to abolish private property and ‘liquidate’ anyone who had accumulated more than the average amount of capital, there was chaos”.

In reflecting here on the destiny of the private land owners and the rich of the countryside (equal to the White farmers of South Africa), Ferguson stipulates the following six criteria set out in 1927 (revised in 1929) by the Soviet Ministry of Finance in their doomed evaluation of wrongdoings of the rich Russians (as Apartheid’s wrongdoings also reflects)73:200:

The hiring of two or more labourers;

Ownership of three or more draught animals;

Sown area of more than 10–16 desyatims (the threshold varied by region);

Ownership of any kind of processing enterprise;

Ownership of a trading establishment; or

Ownership of one or more agricultural machines or of a considerable quantity of good-quality implements

Looking at the above extreme criteria makes it clear that the more or less 35 000 commercial farmers in South Africa would have qualified in 1927 to be liquidated, making their fear for the radicals inside the ANC elite with their extreme land transformation (and sometimes open hostility against Whites, especially the Afrikaners) understandable.3

To understand better the liquidation of anti-Stalin and anti-Soviet farmers (and seemingly rich farmers) by communistic Russia through their good land expropriation policy in the 1920s, Ferguson takes us on an in-depth journey with a clear warning about the political, social and personal madness of Stalin and his cronies [a similar warning the antagonists have tried to send out to the world (like the note to Donald Trump) of what can comes in South Africa if the ANC regime, besotted by its political madness, stays on after 2019, noting the ANC’s revolutionary foundation and Stalinist orientation]. Ferguson73 text is of such importance that it is fully mentioned here. Ferguson73 writes73:200-202:

Who exactly was a kulak? Those who had been better-off before the Revolution or those who had done well since? What exactly did it mean to ‘exploit’ other peasants? Lending them money when they were short of cash? Rather than see their cattle and pigs confiscated, many peasants preferred to slaughter and eat them, so that by 1935 total Soviet livestock was reduced to half of its 1929 level. But the brief orgy of eating was followed by a protracted, agonizing starvation. Without animals fertilizers, crop yields plummeted – grain output in 1932 was down by a fifth compared with 1930. Grain seizures to feed Russia’s cities left entire villages with literally nothing to eat. Starving people ate cats, dogs, field mice, birds, tree bark and even horse manure. Some went into the fields and ate half-ripe ears of corn. There were even cases of cannibalism. As in the 1920-21, typhus followed hard on the heels of dearth. Perhaps as many as eleven million people died in what was a wholly unnatural and unnecessary disaster. In addition, almost 400 00 households, or close to two million people, were deported as ‘special exiles’ to Siberia and Central Asia. Many of those who resisted collectivization were shot on the spot; perhaps as many as 3.5 million victims of ‘dekulakization’ subsequently died in labour camps. It was a crime the regime did its utmost to conceal from the world, confining foreign journalists to Moscow and restoring the Tsarist passport system to prevent famine victims fleeing to the cities for relief. Even the 1937 census was suppressed because it revealed a total population of just 156 million, when natural increase would have increased it to 186 million. Only a handful of Western reporters – notably Gareth Jones of the Daily Express, Malcolm Muggeridge of the Manchester Guardian, Pierre Berland of Le Tempe and William Chamberlin of the Christian Science Monitor – had the guts to publish accurate reports about the famine. The bulk of the press corps in Moscow, notably Walter Durancy of the New York Times, knowingly connived at the cover-up for fear of jeopardizing their access to the nomenklatura.

The notion of the propagandists that the Tsar and Stalin’s collectivist farming projects in rural Russia to uplift and empower the poor and landless Russians were great successes is false. Indeed, for antagonists the tragic political history of Russian land reform spells disaster for South Africa. The Mothlante Report points out that the 1994 to 2018 land redistribution under the auspices of the ANC regime failed, not so much because of poorly qualified farmers, but because of the stealing of politicians and officials of the money allocated to farmers. The question for the antagonists is why would this setup not replay itself now?73

3.6. The presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa in perspective

3.6.1. The impact of Ramaphosa’s political baggage

One of the strong critics against Ramaphosa is the conclusion of the antagonists that he is only going to bring further misery to South Africans in general and to Whites specifically, making him just another “political monster” and a leader unable to handle the land expropriation with true justice and political balance inside the ANC elite. This conclusion is based on the view of the antagonists that Ramaphosa is a Zuma collaborator per excellence. The antagonists are constantly pointing out his long “passive” presence as an ANC member and later as vice-president during the Zuma’s time of transgression. It is justified for the antagonists to bring this matter to the table in the now stormy hurricane which is called land expropriation and in which Ramaphosa stands central with the radicals of the ANC. Munusamy74,75 and Mthombothi76,77 put this “involvement reality” on paper when they point out that he was the deputy-president and has sat through cabinet meetings where Zuma and several of his crooked ministers tried to take action on instruction from the Guptas. Munusamy75,78 and Mthombothi76,77 emphasise that he, as the deputy-president, attended numerous of the ANC’s top-six and national executive committee meetings where state capture was contested. He was also a direct figure in cases where state capture was at least clear to the eye, like the attempted heist of the National Treasury by firing three anti-corruption ANC politicians, namely Nhlanhla Nene, Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas by Jacob Zuma in March 2017. The critics also say that Ramaphosa has been influenced and steered by the politically uncontrolled Julius Malema, especially on the land issue.74-77,80,81

Some political analysts look critically at Ramaphosa’s rhetoric on land redistribution (which they see as similar to EFF politics) from another angle. Firstly, his immediate radical enthusiasm about a fast and decisive land expropriation programme is seen by the antagonists as simple opportunism to win power inside the ANC for support against the pro-Zuma and Zupta-derailing movements to oust him before or during the 2019 election. Secondly, to stay on as supreme leader of ANC, his primary priority at this stage is to save the ANC regime from defeat in 2019 by hook or by crook. Failure will mean his automatic defeat as a figure in the future politics of the country. It is speculated that he is trying to play the long game and that he will wait until after the elections to consolidate his power base to fit exclusively his opportunistic needs.74-77.80,81 Barron63 writes63:9:

“Right now it’s about self-preservation, it’s about winning the 2019 election, feeling threatened by the EFF, feeling vulnerable…”

The whole issue around White land has become an irritating affair for Ramaphosa that is unnecessarily being stalled by Whites. It is now limiting his strength as president and ambitions. The Whites’ enthusiasm about Ramaphosa as their saviour as he replaced Jacob Zuma’s hostility, seems misplaced: Ramaphosa’s political baggage is just too much for him to accommodate the Whites as a group with all their needs and demands: things can get worse for the Whites under Ramaphosa, antagonists feel.82,83

At present Ramaphosa’s impatience about a lack of progress on land redistribution and White resistance since 1994 is growing. President Donald Trump’s questions about the ANC’s land expropriation has aggravated him.63 In his political arena the Whites’ future interests are not important. This mindset makes him a very dangerous to the White community and their future, argue the antagonists. For the antagonists Ramaphosa shows signs of having lost contact with the bigger political picture of long-term economics and nation-building. Indeed, it seems as if the Zuma-scenario of hostility against Whites have not disappeared.84,85

The matter of land expropriation without compensation can become Ramaphosa’s Achilles heel as a president. The months up to the possible May-2019 election can be a bruising battle for the Ramaphosa camp. They can get any side of the coin, which can both have devastating outcomes in the end. Ramaphosa is accused by the antagonists of constant double-talk and of creating many unrealistic expectations among poor Blacks.48 Some antagonists see the present identification of Whites as exclusive land owners as nothing else than the misuse of an “itching political-racial matter” to draw away attention from the ANC regime as a party in crisis to get votes in the next election. It is reminiscent to the White regime’s misuse of an itching political-racial matter in the 1930s when they played of the “poor Afrikaner problem” against the “Black and English dangers” of that time to get Afrikaner votes in exchange for financial benefits to secure their reign of South Africa. The Carnegie Commission then not only revealed this misuse of insecure voters by the nationalist Afrikaner leaders to obtain Afrikaner votes, but also warned against it as a crooked way getting votes. Geen71 reported well in 1939 on this matter71: 201:

The Commission also drew attention to the danger of allowing people to retain the vote if they were in receipt of government aid, over and above the privileges that fall to all citizens. “There are signs that voting power and political influence are being abused to an increasing degree in order to obtain State assistance” was the unanimous view of the commissioners. The opinion has been expressed that those who accept government assistance should forfeit the valued right to vote.

This unethical and crooked way of getting votes is applicable to the 2019 land intentions of the ANC regime and party.71

Ramaphosa’s integrity as politician and as previous vice-president of the ANC regime is doubted by the antagonists and thus the White community. Mthombothi76 refuses to deviate from his initial question in this regard and puts it clearly that Ramaphosa should react to these concerns before he could be cleared as a clean outsider, truly unconnected to the Zuma and Gupta cronies. The antagonists argue that Ramaphosa’s anti-White behaviours since July 2018 further complicated his trustworthiness as president of South Africa. Mthombothi’s76 writing echoes the questions of many antagonists about Ramaphosa into the presidency through the front door. Mthombothi posits76:17:

And because Zuma, the villain of the piece, is gone, we’re now encouraged to wake up to a new dawn. It’s a confession of sorts. Dawn is preceded by darkness. The suggestion is that we’re emerging from a nightmarish, dark place into a glorious sunshine and that we should be grateful to our saviour.

But hang on a minute. Not so fast. To suggest that state capture is all Zuma’s doing is not only a lie but a complete cop-out. It’s akin to arguing that Hendrik Verwoerd alone was responsible for apartheid. That’s pulling the wool over our eyes. The entire party, especially the top leadership, is complicit.

What is missing – and what those who smugly sat in the inner sanctums of power with Zuma want to avoid — is full and honest disclosure. During the Watergate scandal in the US, a high-ranking Republican senator put this seminal question to Richard Nixon: what did the president know, and when did he know it? President Cyril Ramaphosa and his cohorts need to respond to such a question. What was their role in the state capture debacle and why did they choose to stay silent, which was itself a criminal dereliction of duty?

Ramaphosa needs to level with the public. He should take it into his confidence. Be honest with us. Opening up is not a sign of weakness. To the contrary, it may strengthen his position. Trust is an important component in leadership.

The ANC spurned numerous opportunities to remove Zuma. It stood by him. Those who called for his scalp were mocked and disparaged. Now they’ve made a U-turn and are urging everybody to join in their thuma Mina kumbaya.

A pig with lipstick is still a pig.

The antagonists need not look further than Cyril Ramaphosa’s83,86 inaugural speech as the ANC’s leader at the party’s 54th National Leaders Conference in December 2017 to see Ramaphosa’s blindness to Zuma’s “bad” lipstick while he was vice-president83:6:

Finally, I would like, on your behalf, to thank President Jacob Zuma for the 10 years he has spent as the president of our movement and for a lifetime of service to the people; or

We cannot close down the 54th national conference of the ANC without to bring tribute to your [Zuma] contributions over decades in the struggle for Freedom, democracy and development [Own translation].

Mthombothi’s76 diagnosis of a pig with lipstick is still a pig seems to fit Ramaphosa’s political actions after June 2018. For the antagonists there is only one of two solutions for the land expropriation matter: get rid of the pig or clean its lips of lipsticks! But this seems easier said than done in the ANC regime’s corrupted setup where there seems just too many “holy pigs” to handle.76

Gary Eisenberg79 and John Steenhuisen87 put into perspective the cloudy, one-sided and privileged politics of the pre-2019 top circle of the ANC. The ordinary people were held to a different (higher) standard of administrative justice than the ANC’s top leadership (a system in which Ramaphosa was a prominent member together with his boss Zuma and of which he must now be answerable to all South Africans).87,76 Like Mthombothi76, Eisenberg79 is also questioning this ANC integrity79:17:

How can a regime of law exist with integrity when access to administrative justice is only possible through a shadow decision-making authority outside of the rule of law?

This principle cannot be more poignantly articulated than in the celebrated words of US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: “If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy”.

Zuma and his regime became law-breakers and laws unto themselves, leading to immense anarchic outcomes. The question at this stage is where Ramaphosa stands in relation to personal and political honesty versus crooking. Any future perception of him as a puppet serving the ANC NEC under the Zuma-faction can be fatal to his credibility as leader Number One.79,87,88

The fact is, as indicated already, that the Guptas and top ANC leaders would not been in position to allow such constant state capture without the help and approval of other ANC-leaders in the top structure of the party and in the Zuma cabinet. Does a parallel Zuma regime still exist in the Ramaphosa regime? And, most of all, the honest question: Who are all the pigs with lipstick in the Ramaphosa cabinet and in his inner circle?76,79,84

The above questions of Mthombothi76, Steenhuisen87 and Eisenberg79 about Ramaphosa’s possible double role in the present South African politics are growing, also in the minds of the antagonists. It may be their single greatest worry.

Ramaphosa’s possible double role may be a factor in other events. Prominent here is the allegation of ongoing political terrorising and extortion of the Ramaphosa camp by Zuma and the Guptas. Is it a possibility that these alleged powers are making the Ramaphosa regime toothless to fire ministers and state officials from the Zuma regime and to kick out Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma from his inner circle? Is extortion making it impossible for Ramaphosa to depart fully from the established Zuma leftist and corrupted system, leading to his ongoing open support for crooked cadres? There is a die-hard suspicious rumour of a secret list (seemingly only known to Jacob Zuma, Oliver Tambo, Joe Nhlanhla and Nelson Mandela) of current prominent ANC members who are alleged to have been Apartheid spies and collaborators. It is now the time for Ramaphosa to address this matter with urgency. As with an open answer on his possible involvement or not in the Zuma regime’s wrongdoings, President Cyril Ramaphosa and his cohorts need also to respond with a clear answer about extortion by the Zupoids regarding their political and personal past. Ramaphosa has to level any possible dark past to the public. For the antagonists to trust Ramaphosa the question is prominent: Can Ramaphosa afford to respond publicly?82

The seasoned political and investigated journalist Barney Thombothi89 refuses to allow Ramaphosa to escape the present political reality in which he prominently positioned himself, seemingly washing his hands in innocence. Mthombothi89 takes justice further by postulating that accusing “uBaba” Jacob Zuma alone as the evil in state capture, fraud and stealing, is wrong and false. The truth, he writes, is89:21: “…uBaba’s ANC-party as a whole went along with him on his looting journey, making every step with well-planning with him”. This includes Ramaphosa as MP, member of the ANC NEC and vice-president. Ramaphosa’s present brain-washing of the ordinary man on the street with the appointment of various commission, investigations, inquiries, summits and conferences to investigate Zuma should not succeed. Ramaphosa is trying to steer the mess away from him self. It is only the inquiries of Raymond Zondo and Robert Nugent that seem to be of value thus far (but they did not lead to comprehensive criminal prosecutions by the NPA).19,89

The problem with the Zondo inquiry, as opposed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of the 1990s, writes Mthombothi89:21, is that the perpetrators being investigated by the Zondo inquiry are still in power. Mthombothi89 points out this ANC contamination well89:21:

“They decided on its mandate, and it will be up to them to act on its recommendations, almost akin to an accused who has a remit to decide whether to abide by his sentence.”

The ANC elite’s effort to attribute all wrongdoing to Zuma is a failed strategy to escape responsibility: the fact is Zuma was appointed by the ANC out of their own free will and offered a free hand. He was no autocrat who grabbed the power directly. Indeed, he could have been stopped at any time by the ANC NEC. Mthombothi89 writes89:21:

“They were inside the tent with him cheering him as he plundered and looted with gay abandon. So they’re not simply complicit; they’re responsible for the awful mess the country’s in.”

The prominent question is why did Ramaphosa not testify so far to the Zondo inquiry: If he is not guilty of wrongdoing, why the avoidance? His contribution can be valuable and can open a door on the doings of the inner circle of the ANC from 1994 to 2018. Mthombothi89 is on the spot when he says89:21:

The Zondo commission gives Ramaphosa an opportunity to level with the public. As Zuma’s deputy, there is very little that could have escaped his attention. What did he know, and why didn’t he do anything about it? He should therefore be leading all ministers who served under Zuma to give evidence, mea culpas included, to the commission. These things took place under their noses. They must tell us what happened. We will be all ears.

With the above heavy baggage Ramaphosa is carrying, very few antagonists see Ramaphosa as an independent executive leader or futurist who is serving every citizen and community. Many see him as a person politically contaminated by his pre-1994 exposure to revolutionary “radiation”, still driven rigidly by this contaminated past.89 The inclination to misuse power and radical autocratic behaviour and disrespect for rules and traditions is well-illustrated by the fact that Ramaphosa openly ignored the parliament’s decision first to test the public’s sentiment on land expropriation without compensation. He started-up the process of land expropriation without official permission of the Parliament. Mthombothi89 reports on this as follows89:21:

It reduced the entire process to a sham: the currency was knocked off its stride and it’s continued its inexorable slide since.

Ramaphosa seems to be too contaminated to appear before the Zondo commission.

The request of the antagonists to the Ramaphosa regime is: Be honest with South Africans before the Zuptoids tell “their secrets” first to the outside-world.90,91,92 Look what happened with Nene after the Guptas “started to walk” again in daylight! Bruce90, like Mtombothi89, says90:12:

“Do it now, before the 2019 election. Opening up is not a sign of weakness. To the contrary, it may strengthen Ramaphosa’s and his intimate men’s positions. Trust is an important component in leadership. It can bring only confidence to the Ramaphosa regime, and most of all: to himself.”

Coming back to the failed and corrupted ANC period of reign between 1994 and 2019 and any constructive change possible to its reign in the near future, many political analysts rightly see very little change in the post-Zuma hundred days and more of Cyril Ramaphosa and that of Jacob Zuma. The antagonists describe it as an ongoing Zupta-ANC-NEC regime, which is still run direct and indirect by many controversial figures, the likes of Anoj Singh, Bruce Koloane, Mark Pamensky, Rajesh Naithani, Faith Muthambi, Fikile Mbalula, Lynne Brown, Daniel Mantsha, Des van Rooyen, Mosebenzi Zwane, Tom Moyane, Jonas Makwakwa, Supra Mahumapelo, Arthur Fraser, Shaun Abrahams, Brian (not Popo) Molefe, Matshela Koko, Malusi Gigaba, ACE Magashule, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and others. Anti-Zuma and non-corrupt persons in the ANC of the calibre of Vusi Pikoli, Senzo Mchunu and Pravin Gordhan are just too few in number to assure a positive governmental overhaul and the taming or cleansing of the corrupted Zuma-ANC-NEC. The spooky networks of dirty tricks (Bell Pottinger), rogue spying (governmental) and propaganda (Infinity Media, The New Age, ANN7) are still too involved in the Ramaphosa reign.53,76,79,84,93-105

The antagonists see a shadow hanging over the heads of some of Ramaphosa’s intimate political cronies. In this regard Mthombothi2 writes2:3:

Let’s look at Ramaphosa’s own record. In David Mabuza, he has a deputy who, as premier of Mpumalanga, turned that province into a den of thieves, where whistle-blowers are killed with impunity. The ANC head office is headed by Ace Magashule, who’s left the Free State in a shambles and who’s personality involved in enabling the Guptas to benefit in the Estina scandal.

This week it emerged that an ABC employee at Luthuli House has been arrested for involvement in cash-in-transit heists. One ANC apparatchik was heard to express shock at this, but such delinquent behaviour is par for the course. There are many upstanding people in the ANC, but sometimes it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the party has become a criminal syndicate.

There was a devastating exposé in August 2018 in The New York Times (arguably the world’s most respected English newspaper) with specific reference to Ramaphosa’s deputy president David Mabuza’s alleged corrupt activities and mismanagement while he was Mpumalanga premier, write Imraan Buccus106 and Asha Speckman107. Buccus106 reflects on these controversies in the intimate Ramaphosa inner circle as follows106:17:

From this point on he will, at best, be seen as the head of a divided party and of a government that includes the worst dregs of the Jacob Zuma era.

On the international circuit any talk of a “New Dawn” or a “crackdown on corruption” will now be immediately followed by the question: “Yes, but what about Mabuza, and his ilk?

If Ramaphosa cannot remove Mabuza and others like him from the party and the government, his presidency will be paralysed.

The New York Times (NYT) foregrounds the incompetence and lack of insight on Ramaphosa side to involve persons with clean hands into his cabinet and into the ANC NEC, together with his lack of political insight to understand the consequences of land grabbing on the human and economic components of the country107:10: “…saying South Africa needed [looking seemingly to Ramaphosa, the failed statesman] another ‘enlightened leader like Nelson Mandela but keeps electing imitations of Robert Mugabe’.”

In this context the NYT clearly pinpoints Ramaphosa’s failure as an executive leader and tears his foolish argument that land restitution without compensation would unlock economic growth, into pieces. The fact is, as the antagonists also see it: the emperor is naked and sadly he does not know it.107

For the antagonists poor quality of political decisions, supported by other condemning evidence, seems to be cemented into the Ramaphosa regime from day one.2,53,57,76,79,84,93-100,102-105

The antagonists are more than justified to say that it seems more and more as if the ANC (and South Africa) and Ramaphosa are all still stuck in the Zuma syndrome of delinquency and that South Africa will be stuck with this negativity as long as the ANC forms the regime of the day.2,53,57,76,79,84,93-100,102-105

The propagandists’ argument that Ramaphosa’s way of governing by consensus and the use of tactics in negotiation the ANC internal politics, has required him to put some of his key opponents into powerful ANC positions, like the national spokesman Pule Mabe and secretary-general Ace Magashule, is laughable. These decisions are part of Ramaphosa’s radical political ideology. Even if the strategy approach to Ramaphosa was true, it is just a repeat of the earlier failed version in 1994 by Mandela with Ramaphosa as his adviser when they placed political opponents in the cabinet. As Ferial Haffajee108 puts it108:2: “It didn’t work then, and it’s not working now”. It just points to a lack of political insight.2,53,57,76,79,84,93-100,102-105

Ramaphosa’s political baggage is just too heavy, packed with old, stinky and infectious clothes and inadmissible goods. The antagonists are looking forward to what will happen in 2019 when he tries to make a border crossing.

3.6.2. A Ramaphosa utopia versus a Ramaphosa dystopia

Cyril Ramaphosa chooses his words carefully — very carefully. Certainly, he is genial and relaxed, but he is too good a politician to allow himself to get carried away in his pronouncements.

And so, like a skilled artist trying hard not to give away too much, he culls his words most adroitly while also managing to remain warm and engaging.109:15

Is the above a description of an interview with Cyril Ramaphosa after his election as the president at the 54th National Conference of the ANC in December 2017? No, the words were uttered by Ramaphosa 25 years earlier in 1994 in an interview with the former political editor of The Star, Kaizer Nyatsumba.109 In 2019 he is the same seasoned and unchanged politician with the same political enigma: encircled by unpredictable thinking and behaviour and mysterious agendas.

One thing is clear: Ramaphosa did not change his political disposition; it is still embedded in radical African liberation and ANC revolutionism, and still not political finessed. The only obvious change between 1994 and 2019 is that he was 43 years old in 1994 and is now 69 years in 2019!109

Cyril Ramaphosa, like FW de Klerk, entered as Number One as the man of the moment, but like De Klerk’s auk! (greatness), Ramaphosa’s aura also has started to wash out: just much faster. In Ramaphosa’s case it started after only 100 days. The antagonists point out that Ramaphosa made initially a dramatic impact on the ANC and the country’s politics. In retrospect, his actions are bathed in controversy, basically aimed at overcoming and outliving his insecurity and endangering as leader of the disorganised and disunited ANC. This negativity is spilling to his presidency. Two dramatic, suddenly outcomes (totally unexpected for Whites) are prominent: 1) his intention to change Section 25(2)(b) of the Constitution to implement land expropriation without compensation, and 2) his intention to estrange the White part of the population from the Black community and the greater African community.110

Critics of the intended land reform initiative of Ramaphosa and all that surrounds it lay the problems at the door of the person and politician Cyril Ramaphosa himself. Analysts see the sudden political radicalism of Ramaphosa as a direct outcome of a politically impoverished president of the ANC party as well as the state South Africa. Ramaphosa may have won the ANC’s leadership battle in 2018, writes Mthombothi111, but he’s lost the ideological one. He came out of the Nasrec conference wearing the mantle of leadership, but burdened by the opinions of a divided top six and a national executive committee of 80 members, bodies crawling with his political enemies.111

Mthombothi111 enlightens us111:21:

Ramaphosa leads a party that’s pulling in different direction from where he wants to go. As one activist puts it, the head is cut off from the body. A bit extreme perhaps, but it will be interesting to see how Ramaphosa goes about stitching the two together”. To stitch the ANC-party together seem more and more impossible for the antagonists: the head is under witch-doctor’s care at Nklanda and the perfumed half-decayed body stored at Luthuli-house.

Firstly, as Mthombothi111 says, it is becoming a question in which direction Ramaphosa and the ANC elite want to go: A Western type of capitalist democracy or a combined African-styled Chinese-Venezuelan autocratic socialism. His land expropriation intentions reflect a combined African-styled Chinese-Venezuelan autocratic socialism.

Secondly, Ramaphosa as a president is hamstringed by the leftish Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and her radical cronies (as well as the spooky Jacob Zuma who is still looking at every decision of the ANC elite, regime and party), who is still well-established in the background. The intention to oust Ramaphosa before 2019 or after the election is seemingly part of the Zuma-faction’s plan. This insecurity makes Ramaphosa the powerless head of a divided and corrupted ANC. It has gotten so out of hand that Ramaphosa, as last resort, had to appeal (not demand!) at the end of September 2018 for unity in the ANC as a prerequisite to winning the coming election. His rebuke of party bosses regarding their independent conflicting messages was clearly not successful. The fact further that Ramaphosa’s seemingly intimate friend Gwede Mantashe is also arm-in-arm with Ace Magashule (who is undoubtedly not an intimate friend of Ramaphosa), makes his present position extremely difficult. This conflict and disempowerment of Ramaphosa refer back to Ramaphosa’s possible involvement in the Zuma wrongs, or his direct knowledge of it as vice-president.112 As Mthomboth112 puts it precise112:4:

“Mantashe‘s entanglement presents Ramaphosa with a challenge. It constrains his scope to act or confront allegations of corruption by the likes of Magashule and others. His chair and trusted ally is knee-deep in it. The plot thickens.”

The antagonists feel that the radical economic transformation (RET) narrative has won at Nasrec and that the Zuma group of the NEC is arm-in-arm with the EFF ideology (Economic Freedom Fighters). The ANC’s unexpected radical metamorphosis (undoubtedly a driver of Ramamania specifically) was described well by Mthombothi111 in March 2018111:21:

“Early last year the ANC in Parliament voted against an EFF motion to expropriate without compensation, but almost days later Zuma started campaigning for exactly the same thing. The call was taken up by many branches of the ruling party, especially those supporting Dlamini-Zuma.”

On Ramaphosa’s sudden pliancy to the Zuma and Dlamini-Zuma inclinations of land expropriation without compensation, Tabane113 writes113:6:

“It is fascinating that President Cyril Ramaphosa seems to be very much alive to the possible chasm that may be an unintended consequence of the wild and generalized approach to the issue. Earlier this year he even sought to assure the Afrikaner community that the constitution will not be amended.”

The belief of the antagonists is that the Zuma group of the ANC NEC’s radical classic Marxist view is becoming cemented into the ANC base. It is echoed more and more by Ramaphosa himself since July 2018 with his public declaration that “we” (ANC) are going to take land without compensation. This was followed by his very provocative challenge, although indirectly, to three specific role players, namely the South African Whites, Donald Trump and the UN to do something about his (Ramaphosa) intended land expropriation. For a leader like Ramaphosa, with a built-in segment of radical liberation coming from the old ANC, these kinds of announcements and decisions are not recallable outcomes. It’s a final decision by Ramaphosa, without deviating one inch from his old radical political ideology. This Black radicalism, antagonists argue, includes the belief that White monopoly capital captured the entire South African economy and that the only panacea for this is radical economic transformation (RET), which includes dramatic and radical land reform to cleanse the country of socio-economic apartheid and the presence of the inequality and poverty of Blacks solely at the costs of the Whites (who Ramaphosa identified as the sinners). The status of the Whites seems more and more to be second-class citizenship, stripped from its traditional common law rights.111

The opponents of land expropriation are of the opinion that although it initially seemed as if Ramaphosa does not subscribe to land grabbing from the Whites in his heart, he, in line with his liberator’s instinct, has become part and parcel of the “new” ANC’s radical view on the “colonists Whites” and their “stolen land”. This is a direct outcome of the Ramamania and Ramaforia that forced Ramaphosa to stay empowered inside the current ANC NEC and ANC regime.111

What makes Ramaphosa so dangerous in the minds of the antagonists is that it is seemingly important to Ramaphosa to hold the office of president by underwriting the mantra of the Zuma group in the NEC (and indirectly the Malema faction) at all cost, ignoring sound political justice and nationhood. Many of the antagonists doubted his half-hearted assurances that the ANC’s planned land seizure will happen in such a way that it does not jeopardise economic growth or food production from the start. The meaning and possibilities of this rhetoric is so wide that an ox wagon can turn in it! The antagonists see this kind of “presidential testimony” as just safeguarding the ANC regime’s “good” image. The same goes for Ramaphosa’s vague assurances that land reform does not mean full capture. For the antagonists the potential for extreme land grabbing is great. Ramaphosa is clearly not satisfied with the present land ownership and the favoured position of Whites.111

Ramaphosa showed his radicalism on White land in an interview with the journalist Kaizer Nyatsumba of The Star as far back as 1994 when he voiced his disagreement with the 1994 dispensation by pointing out that the major two challenges facing the ANC then were: 1) a clear future political strategy; and 2) the setting of tactics to prosecute the next phase of the struggle, like countering the favouring of White business communities at the expense of Blacks.86,109,111 Revolutionism has not diminished in his mindset, as his 2017 inaugural speech at Nasrec clearly confirms, where Ramaphosa86 said86:15:

“We serve them [principles of the ANC] because we [revolutionary democrats] have chosen, each one of us, to become selfless agents of revolutionary change.”

Antagonists view the present hamstringing of Ramaphosa as a president by the Jacob Zuma and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma gang as a failure to get rid of the corrupted and crooked ministers and high-level officials of the Zuma government. Political analysts refer to this mustering of renewed power by Jacob Zuma against Ramaphosa as a very dangerous political rebirth, coming from KwaZulu-Natal, one which can intensify in 2019 just before the election. The journalist Ranjeni Munusamy114 describes it as114:22:

“War drums in the political battlefields of KwaZulu-Natal will echo throughout the ANC and the country”.

The “angst” that Ramaphosa showed after King Goodwill Zwelithini’s threat to take up arms if his trust land becomes part of land reform, is good evidence in this context. Is he in fear of his life, seeing that political murders are already a permanent fixture in KwaZulu-Natal? Are the various Zuma reappointments by Ramaphosa in other ministerial or governmental positions or in the ANC executive leadership part of this fear of Ramaphosa? His willingness to pay Zuma’s immense court costs from the state’s fund is not only absurd, it reveals his fear. (Note: Zuma’s estimated legal bill per day is R290 000; the number of fraud, corruption and racketeering charges against Zuma is 16; while the number of payments alleged to have been paid as bribes to Zuma is 783).115-118 Mthombothi referred to this financial support as82:21: “…dishonesty doing by Ramaphosa, written all over, if not being patently fraudulent”.

Mthombothi82 posits82:21:

“Ramaphosa’s explanation in parliament last week was evasive, and not at all in keeping with the spirit of Thuma Mina. It reeks of the very odour he claims to want to eradicate.”

The political misbehaviour of Ramaphosa as reflected by the Zwelithini land case and Ramaphosa’s blind disregard for the sound recommendations of the parliamentary High-level Panel Report of Motlanthe for a strict but justified land redistribution programme, spells doom, making Ramaphosa a political factor to be feared in the future.3,82,111,119-122

Munusamy75 warned in April 2018 as follows on Ramaphosa, the leader and his limitations and shortcomings75:22:

Ramaphosa might have great plans for South Africa’s recovery, but it would appear that his own organization is weighting him down.

Instead of focusing on stabilising the state and creating an optimum climate for the investment and economic growth that would hopefully result in job creation, he must fight the ANC’s internal problems
.
Meanwhile, other ANC leaders are ineffective, dogged by scandal or engaged in sideshows.

While Ramaphosa is able to send his lions on the hunt for investment, it is a pity he does not have beasts at his disposal to deal with the nuisances in the ANC.

Ramaphosa’s ongoing failures, specifically earlier in his capacity as vice-president for many years when he had to oversee the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act to do justice to the poor, landless Blacks living on Black trust land are also prominent in the antagonists arguing. For the antagonists the question is that if he failed the Blacks, how can he been trusted to do good to Whites? The antagonists see him as a leader who underwrites a total pro-Black (radical) sentiment on land redistribution and rights.109,111,112

The negativity of critics about the planned land reform under the presidency of Ramaphosa is aggravated further by Ramaphosa’s contradicting and vague remarks on the land issue, which is seen more and more as an escape route he uses out of a situation he does not understand, nor knows to handle.3,82,111,119-122

The ANC regime went down the drain from 1994 to 2019. Prominent is the rising national debt. Ramaphosa as vice-president was associated with the Zuma regime’s fraud, theft and corruption.3,82,111,119-122 Bruce73 indicates that the country’s debt rose from $20-billion with the start-up of the Zuma regime to more than $80-billion at the closing of the Zuma regime, with Ramaphosa as the vice-president. Bruce73:22 posits that by 2021 the interest to be paid by South Africans on the country’s debt will average more than R850 million per working day. This reflects not only failure by the ANC regime in general up to 2018 but also failure by Ramaphosa as vice-president and second-in-command of the South African state. The state capture during the Zuma regime and the failure of Black farming projects and other government enterprises were often the direct result of corruption, fraud and theft from inside the ANC elite and not so much always the inabilities or irresponsibility of Black farmers. The question for the antagonists is how Ramaphosa can improve the crooked and failed political system? Their answer is that he can’t, he is a crippled political leader. Under Ramaphosa South Africa has gone into a technical recession and so far, besides his political and emotional rhetoric, nothing constructive has happened.3,82,111,119-122

Ramaphosa’s41 naivety on the present recession is further reflected by his own emotional, foolish denial of its existence and seriousness when he said41:4: “We should not be fearful and think we are in a recession. We are not.” The ANC has failed to create income for many years, and the government simply does not have the funds for land redistribution. This dire financial situation means that the ANC has to trade confiscated White land in exchange for votes to stay in power.3,82,109,111,119-122

The political week of 11 to 18 November 2018, in the view of the antagonists, reflects the truth about the ongoing Zuma corruption inside the unpredictable Ramaphosa regime after Cyril Ramaphosa’s shocking admission that an amount of R500 000 was disclosed in parliament by DA leader Mmusi Maimane was in fact to help fund his campaign. It was not for work that his son Andile had done for the Bosasa logistics group (presently known as African Global Operations), which has been named as benefactor of several other high-profile ANC figures.123 Qaanitah Hunter writes123:1:

“President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ambitious drive to rescue the ANC and the country from the state-capture debacle is facing its sternest test yet. Today, the president has been forced onto the back foot after he admitted this week a R500,000 donations from the politically Watson family.”

This condemning situation must be read together with the under-mentioned series of condemning setbacks for his presidency, writes Hunter.123:1-2

In this context Hunter123 points out the shock resignation of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene after he was exposed as having lied about his visits to the Gupta compound, the resignation of Malusi Gigaba after the public protector found that he lied in court under oath, and the admission by public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan that he met the Gupta family. There was also a slew of bad economic markers indicating that Ramaphosa’s economic remedy to fix South Africa in any way is a failure.123 Critics believe Ramaphosa knows about the donation and is not forthright when he responded by saying that he “just learn now of it”. DA leader Mmusi Maimane said123:2“…this was no different to how the Guptas captured individuals in the government,” while the leader of the EFF Julius Malema said123:2: “Ramaphosa ‘must take full responsibility and admit that he lied to parliament, and he knows what happens to people who lie to parliament’”. The possibility that his presidency seems to be a short-lived one, is forcing him into irrational politics in an effort to outlive his enemies inside the ANC elite. This situation can make his future actions devastating, unpredictable and untrustworthy.3,82,111.119-123

Ramaphosa’s41declaration41:4: “…we are going to take land and when we take land we are going to take it without compensation’”, is not for the antagonists a myth or a lie, nor is it meaningless and aimless rhetoric. It is a hard fact, a final outcome and a guideline to understand Ramaphosa’s future extreme political intentions with Whites. His extreme decision has a momentum of its own, writes Corrigan110:22: “…it is not going to stop and anyone believing that Ramaphosa is going to back off from his land grabbing intentions of White-land is in for a surprise”. The antagonists now have Ramafear, a fear to go on, even after the Ramaflop at the end.110,124

The CEO of the Altron Group and a Yale World Fellow, Mteto Nyati125, puts the confusion in which the current ANC finds itself under Cyril Ramaphosa into words when he reflects on the abilities of the leader Ramaphosa125:9: “Everything but vision from Cyril”. Nyati125 points out the role of land expropriation from Whites in this political and moral besetting of Ramaphosa and his arrogance and ignorance to publicly rebuke the US President Donald Trump for his comments on the land issue, when he writes125:9: “…it was a strategy mistake on the president’s [Ramaphosa] part. We cannot talk about growth and ignore the US. Our national interests have to inform our choice of partners”, and: “The big threat to Ramaphosa’s turnaround strategy is the lack of a unifying and compelling vision. The vision that the president had was derailed by the land issue.”

For the antagonists the reality, which Nyati does not say, is that the ANC and Ramaphosa have a compelling vision: a vision that is based on live-long national Black radical liberation, one that cannot even be derailed by delinquency such as land grabbing and that makes it clear that South Africa does not belong to all who live in it.125

The antagonists find closure in the words of Mthombothi126 on Ramaphosa and his intimate ANC elites, when he concludes126:14:

“When he speaks, the words often sound as though they come from an empty space, devoid of emotions. He drones”,

and:

“Ramaphosa does not have it in his locker. His words have to be respected simply because they carry the stamp of his office.”

The antagonists’ respect for him and his elite as good leaders is long gone.

Munusamy127 helps to assure the antagonists that their disrespect (and fear) of the leadership of Ramaphosa and his cronies is correct when she posits127:16:

SA’s sixth democratic poll is just six months away yet there is no coherent discourse about leadership and major national issues. Anti-corruption should have been Ramaphosa’s flagship campaign issue but there are concentrated efforts to discredit the clean-up of the state and undermine investigation into corruption. Journalists are branded enemies. There are hidden forces, including criminal syndicates, impacting on our politics. A surprise outcome in the elections is not far-fetched as we might think.

Cyril Ramaphosa is a willing but an inapt president. As PW Botha was unfit to be the king of the modern Zulus due to his White supremacist views, so Ramaphosa with his Black supremacist views is unfit to be president of modern South Africans. For the antagonists South Africa is caught in Ramaphosa dystopia.

4. Conclusions

The many perspectives of the antagonists on any change to Section 25 and their rejection of expropriation of land without market-related prices as described in articles 3 and 4 provide an overview of the political scenario of South Africa, especially for the period 1994 to 2019. The antagonists show how land expropriation is symptomatic of a gradual change in the ANC. It therefore forms, with the manifold other elements, a political unity, linking the land issue with the ANC’s political and economic management as it is primarily guided and steered by the aims of Black liberation and revolutionary politics. The antagonists see delinquent elements and role players that aim to make the political and socioeconomic system of South Africa dysfunctional.

When aiming to understand the aim and intentions of the ANC elite with their land expropriation without compensation, it is crucial to describe and to understand the post-1994 politics of South Africa. This approach was followed in putting forward the many perspectives of the antagonists. Some of their arguments are based on sound foundations while others are emotionally laden and lack depth. In the end, the antagonists want to make their case against land expropriation without compensation as strongly as possible in an effort to secure a win. From a critical vantage point it must be noted that in general the perspective of the antagonists is not representative of the total White or Afrikaner population, but mostly of the contingent of White farm- and land owners, White capitalist business groups with direct and indirect interests in agricultural economics, as well as self-appoints White “saviours and rescuers” that claim to fight unselfishly for the interests of the White farming community and for the Constitution and dispensation of 1994. The antagonists are a minority group, estimated to represent less than 10% of the White population which in reality is another minority group, more or less 8% of the total South African population. They do have immense financial influence and interest in the country’s present economics and politics and its private land ownership model. They feel threatened by and fearful of any socioeconomic and political change away from exclusive democratic-capitalism.

The antagonists know very well that they have reached a watershed in the South Africa political history. They have become easy prey for the radicals inside the ANC, not only for political disempowerment, but also to be robbed of all their assets. Louw gives guidance in this regard6:175-176:

However, as said, criminal proceedings are not enough for many of the apartheid victims. Many of these victims want financial compensation from those who were directly involved in criminal actions, while others wish for compensation from the Afrikaner community and business sector as a whole as they have benefitted from favoured business deals, the many other interests and the jobs etc. that apartheid offered them. Prominent are certain Afrikaner and nationalist Afrikaner business leaders and magnates who benefitted greatly from the apartheid system. They were favoured for business deals, contracts and other benefits. The current battle regarding Radical Economic Transformation (RET), seen by many Blacks as the second leg (economic revolution) in continuation of the first leg of the 1994 dispensation (political revolution), are excellent indicators of the Black call for “pay-back” of White capital obtained from apartheid-incongruities.

For the antagonists the ANC is a politically bankrupt and dangerous political organisation. To say now, as some ANC elites do, like Vusi Mavimbela128 [who worked previously as adviser to Thabo Mbeki, as director of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and as director-general in the first presidency of Jacob Zuma]128:10: “The ANC delivered liberation. What happened subsequently is not what we wanted to see happening”, is a self-acquittal that can only be accepted from a derailed politician who lost his/her memory of the delinquent liberation and revolutionary energy unique to the ANC.128 It was on this liberation ticket that the ANC came to power in 1994 and continuously committed corruption, theft and mismanagement. Mavimbela128 himself admits the negative turn of the ANC in the Zuma days128:10: “Corruption was institutionalized, state institutions were decimated and the ruling alliance brought to the brink”.

The antagonists’ objections against a change to Section 25 hold merit, making their case a strong and well-reasoned one. They believe that a total land grab is outside the reach of the ANC. The party lacks the judicial power, but their unpredictable governing since 1994 is a threat.18,72,129-137

For the antagonists, the period 1994 to 2019 under the ANC regime has been a dark period of criminality, state capture, confused violence, thuggery and race-baiting. It is reminiscent of Apartheid, and it has a momentum that will not slow as long as the ANC is in power.126,127,138-149

The antagonists have an unshakable belief that the general public and the parliament itself will reject any change to the Constitution or would not allow land grabbing from Whites. They also believe that the South African courts, including the Constitutional Court, will denounce any illegal and unconstitutional actions by the ANC that could lead a one-sided policy of land expropriation without full compensation. They base this on the recent failures of the ANC and their failure to do anything about the salvation of the poor. Both Julius Malema and Cyril Ramaphosa are political bluffs that will disappear from the country’s politics.138, 127,139-150

The antagonists agree fully with Bruce151 when he describes this coming cleansing of the ANC from the South African politics, obliterating any remaining fears of land grabbing. He wrote on 16 December 2018151:18:

But wait until Moyane gets arrested and tried, until Julius Malema, Floyd Shivambu and the ANC’s Danny Msiza and a host of others implicated in the looting of VBS Mutual Bank are arrested and tried. Wait until Ace Magashule, Supra Mahumapelo and perhaps even DD Mabuza and Malusi Gigaba and, yes, Bathabile [Dlamini], are arrested and tried for corruption. Wait until the Gupta brothers are extradited and tried. Wait until the whole slimy dough of corruption is unearthed and put on display before disappearing into jail cells around the country. Add Markus Jooste, Brian Molefe and Ben Ngubane to this list.

The antagonists see South Africa as just another failed “liberated” African country, experimenting time after time with failed “visions” and driven by failed leaders.150

Mthombothi150 describes the failed ANC leaders well and calls them to book for their political and criminal delinquency150:17:

Africa is let down by its [Black] politicians. They’ve been an obstacle to its people’s progress. Whichever way one looks, whichever problem one may think of, whichever boulder or ditch that’s ever been a bar to its advancement, the politicians have in the main been responsible for it. They are the authors of our misfortune.

While Mandela sought a better and humane way for Africa, Thabo Mbeki, his successor, in his desire to be the spokesman for the continent and its diaspora, decided not to rock the boat. He turned a blind eye to its misconduct. And he would brook no criticism of its wrongdoings. One, however, suspects that he knew better.

Jacob Zuma had no time to either think or defend anybody else. He descended into some of worst corrupt practices of his fellow African leaders. And he dragged the country [South Africa] from the young and promising democracy that it was to one of probably the most corrupt countries on Earth. Quite an Achievement.

But it should begin with us: we should be brutally frank and intolerant of the misdeeds of our leaders.

The antagonists take this failed leadership of the present-day ANC, as identified by Mthombothi150, back to the founding of the Union of South Africa in 1910 and the White rulers categorising Blacks one-hundred and eighteen years ago as too incompetent and uncivilised to run the country South Africa. Prominent is the dooming testimonies of two well-known White politicians and leaders of that time who attended the Cape Convention in 1908 to design and to establish the Union Act.71 The historian MS Geen, in his book, The Making of the Union of South Africa. A brief history: 1487–1939, reflects71: 54,60:

1) General Christiaan de Wet of the Free State Colony71: 60:

Providence has drawn the line between Black and White and we must make that clear to the Natives and not instil into their minds false ideas of equality. To his mind, the greatest kindness and the greatest justice the Convention could do to the Blacks were to inform them that they are unequal to Whites.

2) Sir Frederick Moor of the Natal Colony71:54:

… White and Black races in South Africa could never be amalgamated. The history of the world proved that the Black man was incapable of civilization and the evidences were to be found throughout South Africa today. Almost every race in the world could point to its stages of civilization but what traces of Black civilization could South Africa produce though the Native people had been brought into contact with civilization for ages?…Sir Percy Fitz-Patrick has spoken of a test of civilization. What was a civilized man? Was it not a man who proved himself adaptable to a civilized community? The Native were incapable of civilization because they were incapable of sustained effort.

However inhumane these comments may seem within the modern context of human rights and political correctness, the events of the past year cause the antagonists to consider for a minute whether these persons were correct.71

The antagonists have two prominent questions at this stage:

Can the ANC regime really erase the remnants of the Black-White struggle by taking revenge by means of land grabbing from Whites, in the process perpetrating the same crimes as their own oppressors?

Can the ANC regime really better South Africa for all its people with land grabbing after they have mostly failed in every category of political, social and economic sphere from 1994 to 2018?

The pertinent question for an objective and seasoned judge will be if the arguments of the antagonists are well founded enough to be heard and to be considered. In considering this question, the counter arguments, opinions and viewpoints of the propagandists should first be considered.

The next two articles (5 and 6), titled: “The propagandists arguments, opinions and viewpoints on changing Section 25 (2)(b) of the South African Constitution to make land redistribution without compensation possible: Parts 1 and 2”, examines the perspectives of the propagandists and their efforts to turn the public’s sympathy to win the case for the ANC regime to change Section 25(2)(b) to implement a policy of land grabbing without compensation.

The research was funded by the Focus Area Social Transformation, Faculty of Humanities, Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University, South Africa.

UNSUITABLE TERMS AND INAPROPRIATE WORDS

Please note that I, the author, is aware that the words Creole, Bantu, Kaffir, Native, Hottentot and Bushman are no longer suitable terms and are inappropriate (even criminal) for use in general speech and writing in South Africa (Even the words non-White and White are becoming controversial in the South African context). The terms do appear in dated documents and are used or translated as such in this article for the sake of historical accuracy. Their use is unavoidable within this context. It is important to retain their use in this article to reflect the racist thought, speech and writings of as recently as sixty years ago. These names form part of a collection of degrading names commonly used in historical writings during the heyday of apartheid and the British imperial time. In reflecting on the leaders and regimes of the past, it is important to foreground the racism, dehumanization and distancing involved by showing the language used to suppress and oppress. It also helps us to place leaders and their sentiments on a continuum of racism. These negative names do not represent my views and I distance myself from the use of such language for speaking and writing. In my other research on the South African populations and political history, I use Blacks, Whites, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaners, Coloureds, KhoiSan (Bushmen), KhoiKhoi (Hottentots) and Boers as applicable historically descriptive names.

Full title: The antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints against changing Section 25 (2)(b) of the South African Constitution to make land redistribution without compensation possible. Part 1: The dysfunctional political and socioeconomic system of the ANC regime (3)

Gabriel P Louw

iD orcid.org/0000-0002-6190-8093

Research Associate, Focus Area Social Transformation, Faculty of Humanities, Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University, South Africa (Author and Researcher: Health, History and Politics).

1. Background

1.1 Introduction

The EFF can’t tell you with a straight face how exactly the expropriation of land without compensation would work. It is time someone pointed out to it that, with 8% of the vote, it will not be able to implement it without the ANC’s say-so.

Everyone is in such euphoria over the long overdue airing of the land question that we have suspended our reasoning about how disastrous this policy could be.

Let’s be frank: the ANC is stringing along the EFF and those who believe it on the land question, lulling them into thinking that it is on the same page. The ANC cannot afford to hand over the land question on a platter to the EFF as an election tool. It has to take some credit for an impending land revolution – except that such a revolution is not near!

The ANC is bluffing.1:18

February2 agrees that Julius Malema, as a master manipulator of the media, is, like all populists, well-schooled in offering very simple solutions for very complex challenges and problems, ultimately leaving a bomb that can explode at any moment. Add to this the senseless utterances of Malema’s sidekick Floyd Shivambu, and land ownership is turning into a time bomb.2-7

February2 describes Malema as a dangerous rabble-rouser with his radical opinions of land ownership and reform. His reference to Malema’s naïve remark on farming, finance, citizenship and land ownership reveals Malema’s political foolishness and short-sightedness. February says that Malema’s message to his followers is in essence2:16: “You are here in large numbers because you are jobless. But if you had land you would be at home tilling your land” [Own translation].

The EFF’s Gauteng chairwoman, Mandisa Mashego8, has shown where she learned her flawed understanding of the economics and politics applicable to land management and ownership when she said on the eNCA TV show Let’s Have it Out, that the EFF–style expropriation without compensation is equal to that of the so-called Singaporean model of expropriation without compensation (which is actually done only in terms of market prices).8 The English proverb: A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, seems quite applicable to many of the EFF leaders when it comes to serious politics.2-8

1.2 The land narrative in South Africa

When Joshua conquered the entire Levant as Israeli territory, they “loot[ed] all the cattle, ravaging all the cities and killing all the inhabitants in the area”.9 A repeat in South Africa is unlikely, as indicated by the political journalist and commentator Onkgopotse Tabane1. He also does not see the “godly higher hand” and “a loud voice coming from heaven” that guided Moses and Joshua in their tremendous religiously, politically, economically, ethically and socially deviant land grabbing. Indeed, Tabane1 posits that the final outcome in South Africa after the 2019 election will be the opposite. Tabane1 believes that the whole Ramaphosa exercise of land expropriation will ultimately be toothless. He feels that the ANC elite is been playing a well-planned mind-game with the poor and landless Blacks. For Tabane1 the ANC regime is just continuing on the path of failing to empower the poor Black masses, as has been the case since 1994 with its ineffective implementation of Section 25 (2)(b) of the Constitution. The opinion is that the ANC party and its regime’s actions, like the testing of the public opinions with the submissions on the land issue, is only part of a manipulated and planned process of political window-dressing. It is seen as nothing else than a 2019 election trick to counter the EFF’s craziness and to optimize the DA’s passivity on the land issue, which the ANC themselves know they are also unable to solve, even if they remain in power for the next 24 years.1,9-11

In short: the argument of a strong faction of political analysts, which includes many prominent Black political thinkers, politicians, journalists and commentators, is that many of the smooth talkers in parliament will not make any change to Section 25(2)(b) or any other part of the Constitution. Tabane writes1:18: “The parliamentary process will not result in a constitutional change that will give the state any more power to expropriate land than was agreed to by Ramaphosa’s ANC at Codesa.” Section 25 as it stands at present is more than enough to bring effective land redistribution and, as said, the ANC’s process of land redistribution has failed to bring real change under its land reform minister Gugile Nkwinti over the last nine years.1,12

The simple questions in the minds of critics are therefore: What will more political and judicial power bring the ANC? Is it just more planned corruption and political delinquency, state capture and self-enrichment by the ANC elite? Is a masked corrupt Chinese deal with farmland in the making, like the doomed Zuma-Putin-Mahlobo nuclear deal that nearly wrecked South African security? Will South Africa become a subordinate Chinese province in extreme poverty with the Marxist suppression of the masses? What is really behind the ANC’s planned land expropriation without compensation?

The antagonists feel that South Africa has been knocking at the door of the Chinese state since 1994 under the corrupted ANC regime and its elite who is more than willing and ready to put its sovereignty on a silver platter for the taking. Land expropriation without compensation is only a small part of the ANC’s deception. Is this a far-fetched thought? No. Three Indians showed this with their crooked enslavement of some of the ANC elite.13-15 Mthombothi focuses partly on above questions when he says12:15:

The amendment wants to go further than current laws allow. If we are to right what President Cyril Ramaphosa calls an original sin, where do we start? Do we have full knowledge or understanding of the original lie of the land, as it were? And at the end of the process, will every black person be entitled to a piece of land or plot gratis? The Khoisan people will vehemently dispute the prevailing idea that Black people are the original owners of the land.

There are just too many imponderables.

Also, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba16 points out the bewilderment in the minds of many of the ANC elites on the land expropriation matter when he writes16:21: “I have not heard anyone spell out an overarching vision which takes all the complex practical and emotional factors into account. Nor have I heard a satisfactory answer to the fundamental question: expropriation to do what?”

Mthombothi is very specific when he writes about Ramaphosa17:19:

President Cyril Ramaphosa, having been blindsided by the ANC, have thought he could muddle through it. He’s now a convert who thinks he, like a magician, can grab private property without compensation and grow the economy at the same time.

He’ll squeeze water from a stone. It also remains to be seen how a scheme that targets taking land from one race group while leaving others untouched can pass constitutional muster.

Thabo Mbeki is also clear on this anomaly in the current ANC’s politics on land ownership with their prominent targeting of Whites and its immense long-term impact on the race relations of the country. Tabane writes18:6:

Amid the insults now emanating from the ANC [because Mbeki has blown the lid of the disorganized and unprincipled approach of the ANC on the land question], Mbeki underlines that it is sad that in the name of populism the ANC is willing to depart from its century-long commitment to non-racialism.

Makgoba16 elaborates further, putting into perspective another side of the lack of insight chief leaders of political parties, like Ramaphosa and Malema, have on the complexity of land expropriation16:21:

I do not think land reform will work if it is driven only from Tshwane or Cape Town, or only by business. We should decentralise the process by allowing people to work out local solutions backed by laws and policy provided by the government.

A fully developed policy of redistribution needs both to take into account that there is more demand for urban land than for rural land, including clear proposals for education and practical help for those who want to work the land. It should not be a political tool but a tool for real transformation, to address inequality of opportunity and unemployment.

1.3 Research intentions

The research aim of this article is to evaluate and describe how the antagonists see the dysfunctional political and socioeconomic system of ANC regime that supports and promotes land grabbing. Opposing this dysfunctional system is central to the antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints on the amendment of Section 25 (2)(b) of the South African Constitution make land redistribution without compensation legal.

This article forms the first part of an article in two parts titled: The antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints against changing Section 25 (2)(b) of the South African Constitution to make land redistribution without compensationpossible: Part One. The next article, titled: The antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints against changing Section 25 (2)(b) of the South African Constitution to make land redistribution without compensation possible: Part Two, reflects further on how the antagonists see the dysfunctional political and socioeconomic system of the ANC regime that supports and promotes land grabbing.

2. Method

The research was done by means of a literature review. This method has the aim of building a viewpoint from the available evidence as the research develops. This approach is used in modern political-historical research where there is a lack of an established body of research on the topic, in this case ownership of South African land for the period 1652 to 2018 in South Africa. The sources include articles from 2017 to 2018, books for the period 2000 to 2018 and newspapers for the period 2017 to 2018. These sources were consulted to evaluate and to describe the current arguments, opinions and viewpoints of the antagonists in favour of keeping Section 25(2)(b) of the Constitution as is and therefore the continuation of the present land redistribution policy with compensation in place since 1994.

The research findings are presented in narrative form.

3. Discussion

A study of the antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints reveals a broad range of elements and role players that affect the political and socioeconomic system of the ANC regime. All these elements and role players either support and promote the intended land grabbing of White land by the ANC regime for transfer to poor and landless Blacks, or see land grabbing as an important part of a greater international political and socioeconomic process of the ANC regime as it benefits the party’s revolutionary and Marxist-socialist policy. Literature on the antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints on land expropriation reflect a variety of determinants that they believe directly and indirectly promote and steer the matter. They point out actions, politics and mindsets that they feel characterize the ANC regime and its elite. Examples include their so-called support for the corrupt business and political ideologies of BRICS and the Russian and Chinese Marxist imperialism; their tendency to be anti-West; anti-capitalist and anti-White; the presence of psychopathological politics; the tendency towards anarchy in their political practices; and revenge for Apartheid. These determinants and many others form part of the antagonists’ objections to the amendment of Section 25 and the land expropriation without compensation that accompanies it. Only a comprehensive study of the primary and secondary determinants can present the case of the antagonists so that it can be evaluated justly.

The primary aim of this article (Part One) and the next one (Part Two) is therefore to reflect in detail on the various elements and role players the antagonists perceive. It is only with such a comprehensive presentation that we can conjure a picture of the antagonists’ civil right to uphold the Constitution in its present form and of their legitimate efforts to oppose land grabbing.

The various elements and role players that enter the argument of the antagonists are presented below in six subdivisions. In the next article (Part Two) this presentation of the various elements and role players continue with another six subdivisions.

3.1. The Malema-Ramaphosa element

This section reflects on the role of the empowerment of the radicals in the ANC and the EFF with land grabbing as a central matter. The section divides into the following subsections: 1) The danger of Malemania and Ramamania, 2) The foolishness and similarity of Malemania and Ramamania and 3) The rise of a new ANC.

3.1.1. The danger of Malemania and Ramamania

It is a mistake to argue that the views of Malema and Ramaphosa (described in the media as Malemania and Ramamania) on land expropriation without compensation is mere propaganda. Notwithstanding the sound arguments of various seasoned political analysists1,10,12,17 that the present talk of land grabbing will ultimately be toothless, there is evidence to the contrary that the demands from Blacks for more legal ownership of South African land will increase after 2019. It won’t matter if Malema or Ramaphosa are still active in politics. The demand for land can become a driverless vehicle, speeding uncontrolled on a busy highway, taking out other cars and many lives, creating massive damage. Prominent in this whole argument is firstly a mass of poor and landless Blacks, hanging on to any kind of promise or solution for their poverty. These are often people who lack a basic understanding of politics, economics and risk-taking.12,17,19-29

The EFF’s ideology (now seemingly also part of the post-2019 ANC’s political ideology) includes a push for classical Marxist land ownership for South Africa, with the state as the sole owner of land, property and financial institutes. This radical inclination stands in total opposition to the intentions of some of the antagonists and propagandists who support a just land redistribution outcome, leaving all the players (Whites and Black) with sufficient land and an economy still reasonably stable.12,17,19-29

The EFF has a very small number of parliamentary seats, but they are exceptionally vocal. The reality is that Malema’s message of land grabbing is influencing the minds of many of the landless and poor Blacks. Malema’s openly hostile rhetoric on Whites as “illegal” citizen of South Africa and his support for radical land grabbing are red lights. The impact of the radicals, who are sometimes criminals or rogues in the EFF, ANC and PAC, must be seen as dangerous political markers with the potential to radically change the South African political, economic, social and judicial models. The political system seems to be restructuring very fast. The Whites, be they land owners or not, seem to be the target as “culprits”.12,17,19-29

Regarding the growing radicalism on land expropriation without compensation and the political delinquency reflected by some of its prominent role players, Bruce10 reflects as follows10: 14: “Over at the EFF, its leader, Julius Malema, insists that not only will White people lose their land, but all Black people too. He wants to nationalize all the land…”

3.1.2. The foolishness and similarity of Malemania and Ramamania

The former leader of the DA, Tony Leon8, writes that the EFF’s Mandisa Mashego equates the EFF’s land expropriation with the well-established Singaporean expropriation of land. However, Mashego deliberately refuses to acknowledge that the Singapore Academy of Law Journal already stated clearly in 2010 (eight years before the Ramaphosa-land grabbing initiative) that in the event of a forced Singapore expropriation, there would be compensation and that the compensation for land will be based on open market value. In practice, the Singaporean regulations are far clearer and it has more specific safeguards for land ownership than the current system in South Africa, even with the unchanged Section 25(2)(b) of the Constitution. The lack of insight on the side of the EFF, ANC and PAC quickly emerges when they start arguing with seasoned opponents. Leon8 describes this kind of primitive reasoning of those in favour of radical land reform excellently8: 20: “If you ask what is 2+2 and your opponent says 5, you can still have a discussion: but if he answers 87 [the alleged percentage of White land ownership], you are on different planets. So this proved in our debate about land in South Africa. We were Venus and Mars”.

The EFF and the ANC’s increasingly racist rhetoric on the land matter is a serious point of concern.17 Mthombothi emphasizes17: 19: “It’s the sort of bigotry that comes straight out of Hendrik Verwoerd’s playbook, and to which, we had hoped, the new dispensation had dealt a fatal blow”. It seems as if the opposite happened with the EFF, and it is now also prominent in the ANC’s political psyche: the ANC is just preaching racism.

Bruce30 tries to give us some positive reassurance of the average individual and political goodwill of South Africans outside the extreme racial context of the ANC and the EFF.30 He writes30: 2: “I suspect very few people know how much trouble [financially and debt-ridden] South Africa is in. It’s not that we’re approaching a racial civil war. I think South Africans are far too sensible for that. They don’t want their country destroyed. They want a [justified, not stolen] stake in something with a future.”

But, objectively seen, Bruce’s guideline, although undoubtedly coming from a very wise man, is truly at this stage that of a very “lone voice in our political desert and wilderness”.30

The most important question still remains for the antagonists: who will curb the ongoing irresponsible war-mongering and the destructive and dangerous incitement of politicians like Julius Malema and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (and now also Cyril Ramaphosa) after the 2019 election, even if land grabbing from Whites is successfully implemented? It is common cause that the EFF thugs (and ANC radicals) are seeking new targets for their ongoing aggression against Whites. The only positive assurance in the face of “anti-Whites” like Malema and Dlamini-Zuma, is that the EFF seems unlikely to obtain more than 6% of the votes, leaving them politically castrated. It also seems as if Dlamini-Zuma is falling into disrepute among the broader base of ANC voters. They make false claims about the extent of their support.17,28,31

3.1.3. The rise of a new ANC

One of the most prominent current dangers for the antagonists is that the ANC has failed to discipline its radicals. The ANC itself remains a dangerous component in politics: the fact that predictions indicate that the ANC can obtain 60% or more of the votes in the 2019 election, which would give them a free hand, could make the practice of law and order more and more difficult. Thabo Mbeki18 recently voiced public concern on the bad racial intentions of the ANC in 2018, even suggesting that the current ANC has become a failed political entity.18

Mthombothi31 emphasizes that the ANC has become drunk from the “alcohol of corruption”. Indeed, corruption is the ANC’s lifeline and further power for them after the 2019 election spells doom for the country in the same way as the EFF’s intentions on land and citizens’ rights, argue also the antagonists. Mothombothi writes31: 3:

Having jettisoned non-racialism and with the paucity of its performance in power, what exactly does the ANC stand for now? What is its culture? By culture I mean its guiding principles, customs and social behaviours. Corruption seems to tower above all else. I’d therefore argue that corruption has become its abiding culture. It’s endemic, it’s systemic, it’s ingrained. In fact, corruption is the glue that holds the ANC together. To the ANC, corruption is like a drink to a drunkard who’s at an advanced stage of alcoholism. He has to keep drinking, or he dies.

Mthombothi12 shows how the current ideas on land redistribution has resulted in resistance from White land owners (as individuals and as farmers’ associations) to the contravention of their land rights.12

Current media debates reveal that there is a possibility that dramatic outcomes, different from those postulated by Tabane1, February2, Mthombothi17 and Bruce10, can follow with the ANC’s revisiting of Section 25(2)(b) of the Constitution. It is argued that if these radical factions win, the outcome can and will change the South African political, racial and socioeconomic scene adversely forever.4,10,12.19-24,26,28-35

3.2. Political scenarios after 2019

Two clearly opposing possible outcomes await us after the 2019 election. Number one: A possibly moderate profile varying from a social-capitalist, but democratic state in which everyone will benefit financially, with an inflow of foreign capital and an improved governing style, leading to development and improvement of the country’s infrastructure, curbing of joblessness and poverty. This setup will to a great extent be an undisturbed continuation of the present status of a free market of land ownership as vested in hands of Whites or other persons (Blacks/Whites) who want to and/or have agreed to buy land at market-related prices. Number two: it reflects a hard-core communist state under autocratic/fascist rule, saturated with corruption, theft and political murders; a country ravaged by total poverty and lawlessness, leaving not only the present White land owners and White rich landless and penniless, but also the masses of other South Africans in the same devastating boat of poverty and distress. 4,10,12.19-24,26,28-35

When considering this, it is important to take into account the present pressure for a better land ownership model, which includes creating a comprehensive Black land ownership and a farming community. One should consider the legal claims by the majority of Blacks on land and the injustice locked into the South African political-historical setup, mostly responsible for the Blacks’ dire personal and group circumstances. But, most of all: it must be addressed in an orderly, accepted and representative way, outside our overwhelming contaminated politics. At the moment the arguments from the different sides are so emotional that it makes a reasonable and rational solution impossible.4,10,12.19-24,26,28-35

3.3. White initiatives to uplift the poor and landless Blacks

The various White initiatives to uplift poor Blacks are described in the following two sub-divisions, namely 1) the White farming sector’s initiatives and 2) White financial and business sector’s initiatives.

3.3.1. The White farming sector’s initiatives

The negative picture painted of the White farming sector as land-grabbing and racist colonists is not entirely accurate.36-38 Many individual farmers and farmers’ organizations have been involved in uplifting farm workers and rural communities since 1994. A good example (although extraordinary) is that of farmers David and Elaine Potter of the Nieuwe Sion Farm between Paarl and Franschoek, who built a R30 million village of 4ha named Lumière, consisting of 22 houses and a crèche, aftercare and entertainment centre for their staff. The cottages and the village became the property of the workers with the title deeds of the 22 cottages being transferred to them.36

There are various other good examples of upliftment by individual farmers and the organized White farming sector to establish commercial Black famers and to help poor Black farmers. One White farmers’ entity, the SA Varkvleis Produsent–organisasie (Savpo) had much success with training support and a financial development contribution of R5.8 million to incoming Black producing farmers in 2016 and 2017 in the North West province, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Western and Eastern Cape provinces.37,38

Katoen SA supplied financial and other support in the period 2016 to 2017, including training through mentorship to 700 cotton farmers in Nkomazi, Mpumalanga, while they also organized financial support for 718 Black farmers to the value of R19.7 million by means of 18 cooperation projects.37

The SA Suikervereniging has helped 6 523 Black farmers in 2016 to 2017 with R124.8 million.37

From the wine industry’s side, Vinpro made a contribution of R2 million to 232 projects by 2017, including 9 588 Black farmers.37

Grain SA, the country’s biggest organization for grain producers, contributed R19.7 million to 718 Black farmers for 2016–2017. It is further involved with 3 800 small grain farmers countrywide in an assistance programme with the government.36, 37

Other White farming entities involved in training and giving financial support to Black farmers is the Wolkwekersvereniging with a contribution of R19.6 million to 330 Black communities and more than 10 000 Black farmers for the period 2016–2017. There was also a support programme for another 108 307 Black beneficiaries in 2016–2017, which includes 55 000 new Black farmers. 36, 37

Agri SA, for instance, is already engaged in upliftment projects with various Black farmers. In 2017 the body paid the guardianship of 22 Black farmers and the veterinary costs of these farmers. The body is also directly responsible for financing the four development farms for Blacks.36,37

3.3.1.1. Agri SA’s initiative

Agri SA under its president, Dan Kriek, has shown a willingness to work with the government to develop a collaborative approach to land restitution and reform right from the start. Agri SA and its affiliates are already very active with constructive contact with the ANC, for instance with their acceptance of the Expropriation Bill (which was unsuccessful before parliament in 2016) and a comprehensive plan that focused on agriculture, land reform and the rural development for Black farmers.39,40

Agri SA feels that the populist and emotional concepts tied to land ownership by the ANC will only endanger the country’s food security. They make it clear that the present demand for more land ownership by “African Blacks” and the annexation of the farming sector by the Ramaphosa regime is a direct result of how the ANC bungled the approved land reform scheme since 1994. Agri SA feels that the intended land grabbing will not solve the matter of enlarging the contingent of commercial Black farmers without a proper development plan: one with a focus on financing and training. The government’s present hostile and aggressive approach will only create more problems around land ownership and endanger the immediate food security of South Africa.39,40 Omri van Zyl, the CEO of Agri SA, puts it as follows39: 9:

The government can expropriate land without paying for it, but what then?

There’s no follow-on financial solution, or sustainable agric financing for the farmers they put on this land, as we have seen with the land reform projects which have failed.

A recent Agri SA land audit shows much of South Africa high-potential land is in government hands.

Government is sitting on multiple millions of hectares of agricultural land which has not been collateralized and is not productive.

If the aim is to chase after the goals of the National Development Plan and Operation Phakisa, then the lowest hanging fruit is obviously to look at government land and give title to farmers on that land.

The moment you do that, those farmers can go to the bank and collateralize it so they can borrow money to develop their farms.

There’s a massive amount of capital that can flow into that land.

On their part Agri SA believes that some kind of agricultural development agency based on a public-private partnership to provide capital for developing farmers must first be established. Their aim is to create a vehicle that offers a form of subsidized capital to circumvent the security of tenure issue. In light of the ANC’s constant failure to implement proper land reform since 1994, Agri SA is of the opinion that properly incentivized private sector involvement will speed up transformation very quickly and with great success without endangering the country’s food security.39

Van Zyl41 believes that there is very little difference between the government’s empowerment plan for Black farmers and that of Agri SA. He writes41: 4-5:

The White farmer community agrees that South Africa must have a much greater contingent of Black commercial farmers and not subsistence farming which is sentimental only and laden with aggressive and hostile politics. At the end these peasants will have to be feed from the country’s national account which is in reality tax-payers’ money. They feel their advice, inputs and various other contributions were so far totally ignored by the government on the creating of a community of Black commercial farmers. Much more they cannot do. Not even the fact that Pieter Mulder served as an adjunct-minister of agriculture under Zuma brings any bettering.

The efforts of White farmers are sincere and comprehensive. The government’s efforts to side-line them seem to be based on pure racism and Marxism.41,42

3.3.2. The initiatives of the White financial and business sectors

As with the White farming community, the ANC often also criticizes the South African financial and business sector for apathy towards the problems of the poor and landless Blacks. Prominent is the ANC’s criticism on the financial and business sector’s public stance on its intended land reform policy. These negativities of the ANC are contradicted by the evidence offered by their opponents.

3.3.2.1. The willingness of the business and financial sectors

The public declaration of the South African Top 100 Companies on 8 April 2018 shows the business sector’s willingness to get involved in a constructive way in erasing Black poverty, unemployment and inequality, as well as to initiate and finance various kinds of training and job appointments to get Blacks active in the labour market. What these companies clearly oppose is any government policy and initiative of land grabbing where the market-related compensation for land is absent. They are not in any way against the justified transference of land to the poor and landless Blacks and the promotion of commercial or small-scale Black farmers. Indeed, as in all well-planned and functioning business communities, they welcome a strong component of commercial Black farmers, especially in light of the decrease in the numbers of the Afrikaner and White populations, which could affect the country’s food security. They also underwrite sound and healthy business principles, which indicates that dramatic land reform means the impoverishment of the existing land owners, the damaging of the food chain and affordable food delivery to the masses, of which most are poor, as well as the creation of political, social and economic disorder, which would not only flatten the whole governmental setup of the country, but also the government’s international standing and trustworthiness. The business sector does not view land reform as money well spent.37, 39-42

The opponents of the ANC emphasize that the business sector seems to doubt if the ANC elite and its current leadership have a basic understanding to run a country by creating well-planned new enterprises, jobs, income and taxes by means of the constructive support of the private sector instead of the liberation thinking of taking from the rich to keep the poor alive. The calls of radicals in the ANC and EFF to nationalize the banking and other financial and business institutions, the mining industry, even the houses and assets of individual citizens and the assets of foreigners in South Africa, is a dangerous political inclination that will cause anarchy.37,39-42

The South African business sector has always been willing and able to bring financial improvement to the poor and landless Blacks without the ANC’s misplaced policy of land redistribution without compensation. The first constructive effort needed before the ANC can hope to better their business and financial record, is that they fix their relationship with the business sector and assure the business sector of their sincerity as a partner of integrity.39, 43-45

Barron39 quotes Soko in this regard39:9: “There need to be ‘honest, courageous, uncomfortable conversations’ between the government and business about what is causing the trust deficit and how it should be addressed”.

The constant failure of the ANC regime to deliver on promises and contracts after “ honest, courageous, uncomfortable conversations” with the business sector is evident from for instance the ANC’s New Growth Path, which articulates the Green Economy Accord that was signed by the government with great fanfare in 2011 with the organized labour and business sectors. The government has failed to make an inch of progress to advance a green economy.39,43-45

South Africa’s so-called 14-Point Plan and List of Structural Reforms, which Ramaphosa promised will increase the economic growth rate and bring more jobs, failed from day one in terms of the principles formulated by the business sector because these plans and lists lack action plans that detail targets or timeliness. Even the Treasury’s list of five reforms, estimated to raise the country’s potential growth rate from 1.5% to 4%, provides, as the 14-point list, little detail on what exactly these measures entail or when they will be implemented, making it a risky undertaking for the private sector to put private money into the endeavour. Moreover, for the opponents all these governmental “wonderful” lists and their promises still failed to stop South Africa from falling down the cliff into recession in September 2018.46

For the business and financial sector, political and business integrity must be a central principle in the ANC’s intended theoretical frameworks for land redistribution or poverty alleviation. The business sector finds Ramaphosa’s recent bragging that “if a referendum was held in 1994 on land redistribution the outcome would be a massive vote collection for land grabbing”, to be lacking evidence. The political views on capital ownership lack the business and political sense associated with democracy and capitalism. It spells doom for the private sector’s assets in which private citizens’ money is prominent.42,45

Soko’s39 view is that it is39:9: “…time for the South African business sector to open its wallet to support the ANC regime if last mentioned mends its delinquent ways”. Private initiatives have far more success and profitable outcomes than the intended job creation through land reform of the ANC can ever bring. In March 2018, Ramaphosa gained the support of the business section by launching the Youth Employment Service (YES). YES intends to link Black empowerment points to corporations that take young interns into one-year work opportunities with a salary. This has already brought into placement 40 000 interns (the intention is a placement of one million). The intent is to later expand the goodwill of the business sector to higher education entities.47,48

The formal business sector, as a primary generator of capital, economy and jobs, stands central: it is indeed the only sector that can steer the South African economy to functionality again.49,50

3.3.2.2. The increase in distrust

As with most antagonists (opponents) of drastic land expropriation, the South African private domestic business community’s distrust is caused by the ANC regime’s doubtful intentions and actions and the ANC’s intention to start RET (Radical Economic Transformation) and RST (Radical Social Transformation). This justified distrust is the primary reason why the formal business side does not promote domestic investments. This is clearly not an anti-ANC lobby per se, but plain a safeguard against losses of public moneys through the ANC’s irresponsible political, social and economic adventures.47, 48

The business sector’s level of distrust is quite clear from the R71 billion that is being invested elsewhere, such as in Ghana. This kind of money that is flowing around in the private sector is why Malema so badly wants to nationalize private banks and the other financial institutions. The recent massive looting of the VBS Mutual Bank and the earlier capturing at Transnet under its former CEO Siyabonga Gama are excellent examples of the many losses citizens have suffered to ANC “infrastructure development” and “upliftment”.46-48, 51-53

The business sector is concerned about the lack of understanding and insight in the ANC after 24 years of rule. They have done little that has been constructive and they still adhere to the belief that taking White capital will free the country from poverty. They have not helped Black citizens like the Afrikaners helped themselves on their own in the 1930s. The little penetration of Black business people into mining, for instance, occurred with the help of White-led companies and the BBBEE model. There are Black mines and other enterprises that have been and are successful, among others those of Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale. There have also been Black enterprises that have failed, and in those cases it had nothing to do with a lack of support from the White business sector.54-57 Opponents of the ANC rightfully point out that the ANC has had enough power in the last 24 years to change the situation. Corruption is killing the positivity the business sector had about South Africa’s future. The antagonists eagerly want to support a future South African regime free from political evils and they want to lift the country’s economy out of the international rating agencies’ red listings.58

The former AngloGold CEO, Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan58, a prominent business leader who was involved in the Minerals Council SA and who was also a director of Business Leadership SA (BLSA)—a person well-known for his hard work behind the scenes to raise business voices against corruption in the post-1994 government—assures South Africa of a certain future if business speaks up when he says58: 2:

Corruption is like cancer. If you don’t catch it early on it spreads very, very quickly. You need to nip it in the bud. That corruption was happening here and was endemic across certain parts [is true].

Business is an important voice and it was lost in the wilderness before, and historically it sat on the side-lines, worrying about how speaking up would impact its business. We had to do introspection and see where we were at fault, make corrections and then move forward. This was all important for us. It was an absolutely critical moment where potentially SA was about to jump over a cliff and it had to be pulled back.58

On the question of whether Zuma’s corruption had been caught early enough and if the country’s economy and integrity can be mended, Venkatakrishnan says58:2: “Honestly, no, but better late than never. It should never happen in the first place. Here, it was probably caught a bit later but before it was too late. It can be reversed. It won’t be a walk in the park, but if there’s a will and co-operation of people saying, ‘not another time. We’ve nearly lost the country once and we won’t make that mistake again.”

3.3.2.3. The prominence of the banking sector

The banking sector seems to be regarded as an easy cow to milk by the likes of Black First Land First, SACP, Cosatu, EFF and the ANCYL. Jacob Zuma accused the banking sector in public of “thwarting the growth of Black business and as contributors to inequality.” The ANC regime’s radical liberation politics and ideology of taking from the one to give to others without generating anything constructive for the state’s coffer led to early resistance and counter-actions from the private financial and business sector. The sector put limitations on possible abuses of banks and other financial institutes, which created fertile grounds for ANC radicals to attack them.59

The CEO of First Rand Group, Johan Burger59, tried hard to teach ANC radicals about the realities of economics and finance and the basic principles of responsible financial management of other people’s assets.59,60 Burger posits59:10:

To the extent that the economy grows, to the extent that there’s capacity for people to take on debt, we will extend credit. It’s our business to extend credit.

To the extent that the economy struggles we will find it difficult to extend credit.

It’s not about whom we extend credit to. If there is no demand and no affordability, we cannot extend credit. This is not about small business or large business or about black entrepreneurs or white entrepreneurs. It’s just a fact of economic life.

At the end of the day, it’s about affordability. If the affordability is not there you can’t expect us to extend credit into that environment.

It needs to be understood that we’re dealing with other people’s money. We’re dealing with savers’ money. We have an enormous fiduciary duty to make sure that we extend credit in a responsible manner.

Banks rightfully oppose land grabbing in any form because they deal with other people’s money, as the CEO of First Rand Group61 clearly states. Expropriation without compensation can bring not only bankruptcy to banks, but also to their investing individuals. The direct impact of the intended land grabbing by the Ramaphosa regime is already affecting the banking system. Professor André Louw61, an agricultural economist of the University of Pretoria, reports that farmers are already experiencing the sudden cancellation of purchase contracts because of the intensifying uncertainty around land ownership. According to the statistics of the Bank Association of South Africa (BASA), banks’ exposure to bonds amount to more than R1 600 billion: Of this amount more or less R133 billion is for agricultural land and R1 068 billion for residential property only. [Their exposure to agricultural debts is around R80 billion, the cooperative banks carrying R9.3 billion and the Agricultural Bank R38 billion (of which 90% is to White farmers whose land is now under possible ANC and state capture)]. Land expropriation without compensation or semi-compensation will endanger the whole South African banking system.60,61

Pierre Venter,61 the manager for human settlements at BASA, gives us insight into the chaos that land grabbing has meant for bank systems when he writes61: 1: “Many banking crises worldwide started when property prices dropped and this negatively impacted on the trust of markets” [Own translation]. In South Africa this devastating phenomenon is beginning to manifest as markets are exasperated by for example the rhetoric of Olly Mlamleli, the ANC mayor of Mangaung, when he said that60: 4:“…the ANC is looking forward to redistribute grabbed farms and plots around Bloemfontein”.

3.3.2.4. ANC’s democratic and capitalist economics

It is an open question for the antagonists whether the ANC really understands the model of democratic and capitalist economics as compared to so-called “liberation” economics. In the view of the ANC’s opponents this “grabbing instinct” is the main reason why the ANC has failed as a responsible and creative regime since 1994 and why the formal business sector is shying away from them. It is far less risky to invest in Kenya, Nigeria and other African countries. The South African scene is dominated by a racial rhetoric that seeks retribution for past injustices.59,62,63

Bruce64 confirms64: 16:

The lesson in all of this for President Cyril Ramaphosa to learn and hold on to – is that the private sector can help (indeed it wants, still, to help) but the state has to be cautious with its money. Assuming Ramaphosa makes no (more) unnecessary gaffes on land expropriation without compensation, ensures that land invasions are resisted and begins to spell out and sell his vision of how an orderly process of expropriation might trigger an economic recovery, the private sector will probably stick to him.

However, if the Wall Street Journal publishes an editorial comparing Ramaphosa to Robert Mugabe and South Africa to Venezuela, Ramaphosa and the ANC must be in trouble. Impressions are sticky and hard to shift once they take hold, writes Bruce64: 16: “If Ramaphosa and the ANC could negotiate the death of Apartheid, why are they so foolishly besotted with poor economic thinking and doing like extreme land-reform, asks the business-sector.”

The question is whether the private business sector would still want to help Ramaphosa and his government in the future.

3.4. Basic questions of immediate interest around land ownership

When reading and listening to the rhetoric on land expropriation, certain questions arise. In some ways these questions have become forces that have to be addressed.4,10,12,19,20-24,26,28,29,32-35,65,66

In short these questions on rightful land ownerships in South Africa and the legal integrity of land grabbing are the following:

Which of the many arguments, opinions and viewpoints are truly grounded in reality and facts? Which are emotional, naïve and even bizarre or outright political falsities and myths?

Who are the people with all these many contrary views, opinions and arguments and what are their agendas?

What are the direct and indirect interests of the many parties to land reform?

What does lawful land ownership really when referring to the claim of the individual citizen?

Why this serious infighting between South Africans about a changed Constitution based on a single Section?

What is really meant with the concept “land hunger by the masse” and “poor and land landless Blacks”:

Is it rural land for farming that Tabane and others are referring to, or is it urban land for housing settlements, situated near industrial and business hubs?

Is the issue of urban land for housing not really the main issue?

In general, are persons like Tabane, Mothombothi and Bruce false prophets with their promises of a prosperous and basically unchanged South Africa in the waiting?:

Are these political writers and commentators visionaries who can really and truly read the South African future?

Are they correct to think that the Ramaphosa regime will be successful in steering the landless and poor Blacks and the many extreme political militant propagandists in their demands for land in a constructive, non-violent direction?

The evidence for both sides in answer to the above questions is overwheliming.4,10,12,19,20-24,26,28,29,32-35,65,66

3.5. The harsh reality of land reform in 2019

The current push in parliament to change the South African Constitution’s property clause [Section 25(2)(b)] to give the state the right to expropriate land without compensation is eliciting strong opposing arguments. Some of the crucial questions include:

Is the view that Ramaphosa’s focus on land expropriation is purely political accurate?

Is it true that the desire for land is purely based on retribution and hate for Whites?

Is it true that the ANC wants White land because those farms are successful?

Is land expropriation up front because the ANC is still at heart a terrorist organization?

Are the calls for land expropriation all unfounded?

The following sub-division presents the arguments of those who oppose land expropriation.

3.6. The dysfunctional political and socioeconomic system of the ANC regime

For the antagonists opposing land expropriation without compensation, the current debate is intertwined with the dysfunctional political and socioeconomic system of South Africa in which the ANC stands central. It is crucial to take a look at the causes of the current state of affairs and the aims of the ANC if one wants to consider what went wrong since 1994 in the South African political setup.

The sections below provide a comprehensive overview of the direct and indirect elements, determinants and role players that brought us here, including political histories, economics, politics, the judiciary, etc.

3.6.1. The ANC’s drowning of the 1994 democracy

According to those who oppose land reform, the undermining of the South African democracy started in 1994 with the ANC taking power. Fascist thinking quickly formed a foundation for ANC action. It is illustrated by their present direct attack on the Constitution and their intended land expropriation without compensation. This makes the ANC a troubled regime and a direct danger to the civil and democratic rights of South Africans in the eyes of the antagonists. Their disregard for White rights to land ownership and their plans to specifically harm Whites financially, show how they are drowning democracy. The antagonists refer to five clear political outcomes when they make this argument: 1) the decline of the democracy, 2) the use of populism, 3) the still fragile South African democracy, 4) the uncertain economy in a fragile democracy, and 5) land grabbing as a fascist act.4,10,12,19,20-24,26,28,29,32-35,65,66

3.6.1.1. The ongoing decline of the democracy

The antagonists see the land grabbing from Whites by the ANC regime as part of a dangerous democratic decline in South Africa. In the book State Capture in Africa by Melanie Meirotti and Grant Masterson, published by the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa is identified with various other African countries to be under attack for state capture in various forms by private groups and individuals (as happened with the “Zupta” state capture). In this context the agendas and strategies of the political leaders are often masked and their personal needs are sold as that of the population (land expropriation without compensation is also being sold as something on behalfof the population who wants it urgently).4,10,12,19,20-24,26,28,29,32-35,65-67

John L Stremlau67, a visiting professor of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, describes the modus operandi of state capture when he writes67:11: “Dictators can do this at will. Those who are elected democratically face obstacles. They must subvert democratic norms and hollow out state institutions, all the while obscuring their real purposes, often exploiting populist fears and resentments.”

For the antagonists, land grabbing is one of the outcomes of how South African state institutions have been hollowed out from 1994, implying the subversion of democracy. Evidence is plentiful that many remnants of this delinquent model are still functioning inside the Ramaphosa regime. The Zuma-orientated ANC NEC still strongly reflects in the ANC government of 2019. 4,10,12,19,20-24,26,28,29,32-35,65-67

To stay in power, the ANC is gathering as many as possible votes from the masses, primarily by the exploiting populist fears and resentments.67 Land grabbing has also become a vehicle for secondary wrongdoings, like channelling riches to the ANC elite. They offer reasons such as Black empowerment, but in truth Luthuli house is steering the process as state capture has become entrenched in the post-Zuma regime. The way in which Ramaphosa addressed the nation “officially” only as president of the ANC with respect to the ANC’s decision on land expropriation and his disregard for parliament’s authority with his announcement of a policy on land expropriation decided on and approved by Luthuli house, reminded of an authoritarian regime and a fascist leadership.4,10,12,19,20-24,26,28,29,32-35,65-67 The antagonists no longer feel as if they have any say in the matter.

3.6.1.2. The use of populism

Derby68 shows that populism is still a tantalising and easy option to use to mesmerize certain segments of society. As result of the failure of the ANC regime over two decades, its leadership is jumping on the revolutionary bandwagon of land to win votes.68

Derby warns68: 2: “Never believe a politician whose mission is draining the swamp”. This echoed for the antagonists’ one of the many reasons why the ANC, driven by their opportunistic and corrupted ANC leaders, has failed the country and why our democracy is in a process of drowning.

The former KwaZulu-Natal premier and a member of the ANC’s National Working Committee, Senzo Mchunu, clearly indicates the power Luthuli house has to override parliament in official decision-making and the execution of decrees regarding the land reform issue.69 Prominent is the public downplaying of the parliamentary Motlanthe Report by Ramaphosa himself as well as by the ANC NEC. Mchunu69 declared69: 4: “Comrade Kgalema has expressed a view, it shouldn’t be confused as the ANC having come to a conclusion”.

The un-parliamentarian and authoritarian ANC conclusion that led to the “official” implementation of land expropriation by the 80 members of the ANC NEC is seen by the antagonists as the final decision on land expropriation. But for the antagonists this is also a warning of how undemocratically the ANC will be ruling in future.69

The opponents note, with good reason, that the ANC, as the present ruling party that is losing its majority, can stay in power unconstitutionally by means of traditional dictatorial or authoritarian rule (well-known in post-colonial Africa). The present forcing of land grabbing reminds of these practices.67, 70-72

3.6.1.3. The still fragile South African democracy

Land expropriation could be the tip of the iceberg of retribution and revenge. Those who oppose it are all too aware that democracy is not a given, it is sustainable only in certain conditions.67 Stremlau67: 11 writes: “But no democracy is ever secure, even the US. That case study points to historic and current examples of how oligarchs masked as patriots and democrats, can exploit the fears and resentments of key constituencies to win elections, disarm democratic protections, and diver public resources to the privileged few.”

There are just too many old comrades in the “renewed” ANC. They parade as the saviours and rescuers of the poorest Blacks, fronting the White problem as reason for all ills. Mchunu’s69 following naïve remark reveals a lot about the word manipulation of the ANC leadership as they cover up their real intentions69: 4: “We are cautioning against unnecessary and inflammatory statements that are not conductive to peace. The land debate must move without any political populism of any kind.”

The good intentions of the ANC leaders are contradicted daily by their actions. The ANC elite reflects a lack of understanding of the concept of keeping peace and the enormous difference between expropriation with compensation and without compensation, as well as the difference between justice and injustice, reconciliation and revenge.69

The ANC may win the 2019 election (the sixth post-1994 general election) by jeopardising the country, but chances are good that they may lose soon after 2019 because of the bankruptcy of the country. This is basically because they lack sensible domestic policies, besides radicalism, to generate work opportunities and to create money to erase poverty and inequality: something that land grabbing cannot bring to the table. It only can aggravate the already chaotic situation.73,74

3.6.1.4. Uncertain economy of a fragile democracy

The antagonists believe that other constructive approaches and solutions are needed for South Africa’s many ills and crises. Bruce says73:22: “That leaves only one other route – sensible domestic policies that, even in the face of external events, can serve as a floor from which to build viable defences of our own.”

Prominent here is cutting government debt (it quadrupled in Zuma’s time to $80 billion) by cutting public sector jobs, selling off the SAA, SABC, Transnet and Eskom and training the masses. There is a clear choice and message for the ANC regime73:22: “…cut government’s debt and make money and stop exploiting through land grabbing and over-taxing the hard-working citizens of South Africa to make-up for your governmental impotence.”

If the ANC wants to persuade people to invest in their government and the country, they must first have the necessary potential and integrity to convince investors that they will make profits without risks73:22: “To prove it to them you put every piece of legislation you pass through just one stress test – will it attract or repel investors?”

The legislation on land expropriation will not pass this test. It not only repels investors, it is driving local and international investors’ away.73

3.6.1.5. ANC’s intent to grab land

Those who oppose land expropriation feel that the policy stems from a fascist seed.75, 76 The question is what is fascism? The former US politician, Madeleine Albright75, points out that it is in the first place difficult to define fascism75:11: “First of all, I don’t think fascism is an ideology. I think it is a method, it’s a system…a means of seizing and holding power.”

Albright75,76 brings us into the ANC elite’s state of mind: fascism and not so much communism is what drives the ANC elite. It tells us for the first time the reason why the ANC elite wants to seize power and how they hold power.75,76

One should understand fascism to understand the possible course of politics in South Africa after 2018. Land expropriation without compensation is only the tip a massive iceberg. It is useful to reflect Albright’s description of fascist leaders and their fascist systems. Albright 75:11 posits:

Fascism’s leaders have an “aptitude for spectacle”, a cult-like ability to establish emotional links to the mob and bring to the surface “deep and often ugly” feelings. Theirs is an intolerant, antidemocratic “doctrine of anger and fear”, marked by strong ethnic identification, as well as vilification and discrimination against non-members.

It often draws its energy from “a memory of humiliation” that percolates upwards from the general populace. The more painful the grounds for resentment, the easier it is for the fascist leader to build his following by “dangling prospects of renewal or vowing to take back what’s been stolen”.

It relies on intimidation and, often, violence. For it to succeed, the traditionally independent institutions of democracy, such as the police, the prosecutorial services, the judiciary, and civil service, all have to be brought under partisan control.

After reading the above, can anyone doubt who the ANC elite or what the ANC regime represents? Their opponents know very well that rooting out fascism is not easy: it is like cancer. Land grabbing is one of its most serious manifestations, the first of many other manifestations to come as the cancer penetrates the system. As long as the ANC is the ruler, land grabbing will thrive.

3.6.2. Land expropriation’s effects on the economy

Land grabbing is fully intertwined as a financial and economic generator within the South African economy. It does not matter to whom land belongs or who is producing what on it, it has intrinsic value. The income and the value of land of course depend on the sound political, socioeconomic and financial system of the country in which it functions. If it is functioning in an unstable political environment the income from and the value of land is mostly poor, leading to poverty, unemployment and inequality between urban and rural inhabitants. Land grabbing itself mostly generates distrust of the government, leading to a low foreign investment culture, seldom improving the situation of the poor and landless. If land grabbing is engineered in an already down-spiralling economy characterized by political instability, it can only spell economic and political disaster. It is in such an unfavourable socioeconomic and political environment that extreme land reform is planned in South Africa. Besides land grabbing as part of the ANC’s plan to improve the South African economy, they are planning various other schemes with which land expropriation is intertwined.4,10,12,19,20-24,26,28,29,32-35,65-67

In this division the attention is on the following three subdivisions: 1) Ramaphosa’s Stimulus Package, 2) the devastating unemployment in South Africa, and 3) the constant decline politics and economics.

3.6.2.1. Ramaphosa’s “Stimulus package”

Antagonists see land grabbing as signs of a failed economy in which all kinds of escape routes from reality are being tried out by a government stripped of the ability make an economic turn-around. It is often started by regimes simultaneously with attempts at economic development and other so-called “bettering” of fiscal plans to distract negative attention from the grabbing process where mostly a certain prosperous group is harmed to benefit another less meritorious group. Other times it is used in an effort to offer some credibility to the particular regime’s continuously failing economic reforms and upliftment schemes to serve as a guarantee for the poor people and voters of a regime that has somewhere in the future a free assistance plan in place to help them.

At the moment is it old news that the Ramaphosa regime is in deep financial trouble, making drastic actions such as land grabbing, either as an attention distracter or, as Ramaphosa seemingly believes, a money generator, an unavoidable part of his many promises of dramatically reforming the South African economy. The present plans around land grabbing by Ramaphosa must be read together with his bigger stimulus plans as a supporting source of income or finance and voter recruiting. Ultimately this will do little good.4,10,12,19,20-24,26,28,29,32-35,65-67

Firstly, it is important to look to Ramaphosa’s various economic plans together with land grabbing, like his Stimulus Package with which he promises to invigorate the economy. In the context of the current economic stagnation of South Africa, Derby74 paints a very distressing picture, mentioning an economy bereft of any substantive investment over the past decade and a national psyche drenched in tales of corruption centred on the ruling party and the role of its former president. This failed governance of the ANC regime dented the confidence of consumer and business to levels last seen more than 30 years ago [during Apartheid]. Notwithstanding Ramaphosa’s various promises to the nation, especially to his electorate, there are negative realities that are overwhelming. In this failed economic state, land grabbing is undoubtedly becoming tempting, an excellent way to put some of the political and economic demands at rest, at least for the short term.74

Derby77 discusses the country’s present economic fiasco by looking at Ramaphosa’s much talked about Stimulus Package as presented during his economic address on Friday 21 September. He writes77: 2:

Finally, some sobriety. That is my take from this Friday’s economic address by President Cyril Ramaphosa and his team. There were no grand announcements of billions flooding into the economy from friends in Asia, no promises of the creation of millions of jobs in whatever catalogue of time frames politicians dust off the shelf. And importantly, it also wasn’t the matter-of-fact economy diagnosis that former finance minister Malusi Gigaba once delivered that sent everyone into a mad panic

What emerged most for me from the Ramaphosa “stimulus” announcement was this cabinet, or at least those members of it that are in his corner, have a grip on the reality of the situation.

Lumkile Mondi78, a senior lecturer in economics at Wits University, says that the Ramaphosa plan is simply a recovery package rather than a stimulus one. He concludes that South Africa has energy, water, transport healthcare and educational problems that need comprehensive fixing78: 8: “We have a huge infrastructure deficit that requires trillions of Rands to get it going for a modern economy. We don’t have capital at all. The money the IDC and others have is not enough for us to address the infrastructure deficit in our country.”

The above reflection is in line with the view of Joffe79, who also writes that Ramaphosa’s economic stimulus package is not a stimulus package at all, but the plain replay of a budget previously done79:2:

There is no new public money going into the economy, and that’s no bad thing given that the government doesn’t have the money to spend. The R400bn of public money that will go into the new SA Infrastructure Fund is simply the infrastructure spending – minus that of the state-owned companies – that government already had on the budget for the next three years. And the R50bn that’s going into new priorities such as black commercial farmers, township and rural economies and bedding for public hospital patients is being shifted somehow from other budgets.

Bruce80 describes it as a neither a negative nor a positive plan, but a fiscally neutral one, lacking any improvements to the chaotic economy of the country, while Khumalo81 says81: 10: “…that to everyone he spoke see it as negative” and that it was merely a reprioritization of money already in the coffer, and indeed no more than a reversal of bad policy decisions and fixing some obvious missteps by Jacob Zuma”.

For Khumalo81 the best description of the different analyses by commentators is 81:10: “…was once again the prophesying of an imminent Armageddon for the South African and its economy”. Khumalo81 him self, tactfully as a professional, describes it the best as follows81:10: “In layman’s terms, the president, in his capacity as the head of the home, told his family: “Hello guys. We are broke. There is no more money coming. I am not getting a raise. I am not getting a bonus. And I cannot borrow any more money from the bank”.”

The SA Infrastructure Fund is already a mess, writes Joffe79:2. It is unclear how the new fund will work and how it will be governed, but it seems to be intent only on re-collecting the billions rands already allocated to the government’s fragmented and ineffective infrastructure spending programme. It seems indeed a desperate last effort to steer the money budgeted more effectively and creatively, as well as a hopeful last effort to incorporate outside the fiscal other funds and skills to rehabilitate the economy. The private sector is interested in the recruitment of local private sector funding outside the fiscal, like the private sector’s pension funds and various other sources of private sector funding to improve the economy, but again, when considering the poor financial CV of the ANC regime and their poor relations with the South African private sector, the private sector will be hesitant in the coming three to five years if the ANC wins the 2019 election. The fact that national debt is nearing 60% of revenue (with the potential of growing) and the fiscal is also burdened with the immense liabilities of the SOES and financial collapse of more and more municipalities, makes Ramaphosa’s mission to turn around South Africa’s economy almost impossible. Recovery for South Africa, even under a new responsible and respected political party and government, is a long way off.74,77-79,82,84,85

In the economic and financial chaos it is understandable why it is tempting for Ramaphosa and his men – in an effort to lessen the people’s political and growing economic pressure on him to erase in some way their immense poverty – to execute an extreme land grabbing programme as fast as possible.74,77-79,82-85

Ramaphosa himself describes the outcome of the ANC’s political and economic actions as follows78: 8: “The state is unable to raise borrowing. SA has a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 53%”.

South Africa’s debt-to-GDP leven is 53%, and the general view is that for emerging market nations, the healthy debt-to-GDP level is about 40%. It is not advisable to go beyond this as South Africa has done. Ramaphosa’s planned Stimulus Package seems to be a long term dream and an ideal that can only be reached under an able and competent regime, requirements that the ANC does not meet in the eyes of the antagonists.74,77-79,82,84,85

Land expropriation with full compensation is totally outside the financial ability and reach of the ANC regime. However much the regime would have liked to do it (if it was politically correct), it lacks the capital to do so. In the current unstable South African economy, radical land expropriation is the only option.74

3.6.2.2. Unemployment in South Africa

Ramaphosa’s further admission that the country’s growing devastating unemployment is an immense problem is another condemning failure of the ANC. The ANC regime promised and undertook constantly from 1994, before every election, to rectify the unemployment. This constant promise of the ANC regime to rectify unemployment was again manifested in the Ramaphosa Stimulus Package. This promise of Ramaphosa failed dolefully before it started.74,77-7982,84,85 When presenting his Stimulus Package, reflecting wistfully on “bettering” the record of the present high unemployment that sits above 27%, Ramaphosa says74: 1: “Governments [as the ANC] are “… usually not very good at creating jobs…We do our little part’. Overall, we are not good at creating jobs. We should be at the top of our game when it comes to being an enabler and being a catalyst.”

With his admission of the ANC’s failure as a government with a specific mandate from its voters to offer them sufficient work opportunities and of their long term failure to run successful job creation programmes in over 24 years of rule, Ramaphosa offers insight into why land expropriation without compensation could be used as a vehicle to solve unemployment.

In this context of the present unemployment of the masses, it is important to mention that when Jacob Zuma came into office (with the support of Ramaphosa as vice-president), he promised to create 5 million jobs in 10 years (2 million per year). Of course, as with the most other ANC promises, this was not met, leading to a situation where the state ended up with a bloated and rather expensive public service instead (by offering jobs in state services to unemployed Blacks and in this way buying votes for the ANC through loyalists). Again, notwithstanding the failed unemployment record of the ANC (and the manifold empty promises), Ramaphosa is trying again to pull a rabbit out of his hat, knowing very well there is not a rabbit to grill for the poor and jobless Blacks. Another way must be found to offer the masses of poor and unemployed Blacks many fat rabbits to grill: land grabbing.74 For the antagonists there is clearly one specific outcome at their costs: more land grabbing to solve the hunger of Ramaphosa’s millions of unemployed persons.

For the antagonists South Africa has basically been bankrupted by the ANC and there is no other way for Ramaphosa and his cronies to find the immense capital needed to erase unemployment in their own funding model other than a free hand with land grabbing in the hope to keep in short term the unemployed and landless poor Blacks silent.

The unemployment crisis is central to the ANC’s constant failure with serious political matters and their failure to make a constructive correction away from the foolish and useless so-called 2018 Stimulus Package Plan. They are masking a far more disastrous future situation of an unofficial unemployment percentage of far higher that the reflected official 27%. It has the potential, in combination the other negative political and economic determinants, to derail the political state with anarchy and revolution in the near future. This negative set-up needs further reference. Firstly, to think that the recent control taking of economic structures by the presidency will be a cure to the country’s ineffective economy is wishful thinking. Secondly, the Ramaphosa regime’s belief that they will bring unemployment to zero (0%) in 2030 is laughable. Even lowering the percentage will be to 14% in a decade or two is just not possible in an ANC regime.74,77,78,81,86

These “fantasies” are part of the ANC’s political history, coming from 1994 with their: “we have a good story to tell”. The ANC’s political stories, like their political doings, lack trustworthiness for the antagonists. The ANC regime and its elite are in a mess.74,77,78,81,86

Bruce80 consolidates this present mess under the ANC regime well, especially the ANC elite’s constant excuses and proclaimed innocence of involvement in this mess that came with the 24 years of their reign80: 20: “On a more mundane level, we all make choices all the time. Most of us. One creature that never has to make choices is the ANC. It always manages to combine everything it wants into one choice. Come the next election, I guarantee you it will dream up a new list of Five Priorities, whatever they are”.

The next election is in 2019, meaning more new fantasies and promises come from the ANC! Ramaphosa himself is doing exactly what Bruce80 identifies as a failing politician80: 20: “…to put a list on top of his priorities instead of putting a priority on top of his list”. The ANC has become well-known for propagating falsities before elections and what has happened in reality is that unemployment (as well as crime, murder, state capture) has gotten out of control in ten years.74,77,78,81,86

Ann Bernstein87, the executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise, reports that the country’s unemployment crisis is the worst in the world. She reports there are 37.8 million work-age adults, of whom 11.9 million are not economically active (mostly students and school learners), reflecting an unemployment of more than 32%. Of the remaining 25.9 million people, as many as 9.6 million cannot find any work, making it almost two out of every five adults (40%). In terms of the 37.8 million work-age adults, these so-called “not economically active adults” of 11.9 million and the 9.6 million failing to find work, represents nearly 52% of unemployed adults. Seen from another angle, Bernstein87 shows that only 43% of adults work (while globally this number is 60%), meaning that 57% are out of work. The growing chaos into which the ANC regime has forced its people, is confirmed by the fact that between 2008 and 2018, the number of work-age adults has grown by 6.3 million, while only 1.9 million (30%) had been employed and 3.2 million stayed unemployed (thus more than 50%). The hard truth is that there is a daily increase of 900 unemployed people in the population. This has been the case for ten years, but Ramaphosa and his ANC elites are very quiet about this as they sit in their highly paid jobs.87

Bernstein87 delves deeper into the tragic realities created by the ANC since 1994 by reflecting that the position of young people is even worse. They have an unemployment rate of 50% and 400 000 fewer people were employed in 2018 than in 2008 (ten years earlier) despite that he number of young people increasing by 2 million between 2008 and 2018. She writes87: 21: “The 9.6-million unemployed mean that there are more people looking for work in SA than there are people living in seven out of nine provinces, and, if you wanted to reduce the unemployment by half, you would need to create industries that employ 11 times more people than are currently working in the entire mining sector.”

The reasons she offers for unemployment is comprehensive, like the prescription of relatively high minimum wages by the government, the considerable legal protection from dismissal, the failure of job creation projects, most only benefitting a small group of jobseekers, constraints on private firms when employing people, a lack of SMEs and a lack of constructive governmental support to generate such entities, etc.87

The writing of Sifiso Skenjana88, an investment and economic research specialist, describes Bernstein’s87epitaph on South Africa further in an effort to give Ramaphosa a free diagnosis of the economic reasons for the looming death of the country. He writes that South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies globally in terms of income and wealth distribution. The bottom half of the local workforce receives a meagre 12% of all wages. In this context, he pinpoints that the Oxfam report88:9,“Reward Work, Not Wealth” reflects that the cost of supporting the needs of one person monthly in South Africa is about R6 460-00, while the minimum wage from the 1st May 2018 is R3 500-00 (reflecting a shortage of R3 000). Using the World Bank’s measure of SA’s Gini-coefficient, it is the highest in the world at 0.63. [Income inequality on the Gini ranges from 0 (excellent) to 1 (worst)]. Skenjana88 also shows that poverty levels are rising, quoting Stats SA’s recent report “Poverty Trends in South Africa”, which says that the poverty head count increased from 53.2% in 2011 to 55.5% in 2015. Taking into account that the down-spiral of the country is a constant feature (like the debt-to-GDP ratio accelerating from 32% in 1990/91 to 53% in 2017/18), there is no hope of a turn-around on any of these statistics, only a desperate hope to decrease some of this negative numbers.88

The above comprehensive profile on South Africa’s economic chaos brings us back to the “Ramaphosa solution” in which poverty, inequality and unemployment are seen as the same things that can and must be tackled simultaneously to be nullified. In his solution land grabbing is one of the main means and the easiest solution to better the ANC’s poor financial profile. White land grabbing offers an open door to get entrance to exclusive capital, to not only generate free capital without cost to the state so that they can satisfy the poor and landless’ growing needs and demands, but also to assure cohesion inside the ANC’s voter contingent. But, as with most of the ANC’s solutions for politics and economics, these radical ANC politicians lack the ability to reason and tell how they are going to do the land grabbing, writes Bruce80: 20. What these ANC politicians miss as a result of their lack of expertise, is that the causes of and the solution to unemployment, poverty and inequality differ immensely, making land grabbing as a solution to any one of these three problems, null and void. As a guideline for the Ramaphosa regime Bruce profers80: 20: “Poverty is caused by the absence of money or assets. Inequality results from the presence of money. Poverty is the first priority to fix [and must thus be on top of the list as a priority]. Unemployment is often caused by employers being deterred from hiring people”. This means to bring down unemployment there must be less rigid and senseless official employment rules inside the country’s unstable politics. Bruce80 writes further80: 20: “…but then politics makes an appearance, because to lighten the load on employees, or to make it worthwhile to be an employer, requires, to an extent, disempowering the trade unions and we can’t have that [because Cosatu and its affiliates are alliances of the ANC]. At the end the ANC has become his own prison warden”.

This emphasis on the mismanagement of the current South Africa points to Albright’s identification of the presence of fascism in the ANC’s government system so that the partisans’ (like the trade unions) obtain part or full control of the traditionally independent institutions of democracy, making the economics and democracy of the country a failure on the one hand, while on the other hand the capital and assets of the moderate to rich persons look attractive for grabbing. When the unions and the partisans come from the majority of the population and they also formed the radical government of the day, outcomes such as the ANC elite’s decision to do land grabbing become an obvious and a natural reaction in an uncontrolled and disorderly society under an uncontrolled and disorderly regime.75,76,80

The alliance with the workers and their primary (individual, citizen, worker and so-called false democratic) rights at the cost of the functional private business sector and individuals is closely linked to its economic failure. These distinctions are taking on a racist tone, with the minority group of Whites as the losers). In this context the ANC’s basic political and economic policies, thinking, planning and doing has become cemented in revolution and fascism via the unions. This explains the shying away of the private business sector and their fight to keep sustainable democracy and private capital out of reach of the ANC’s tentacles in South Africa. Prominent in this grabbing of Whites assets is Cosatu and its affiliates’ contaminated political roles and influences in the past inside the ANC alliance, together with their current continuation of foolish and outdated revolutionary political thinking and doing. It is many times more radical politically than the already politically and socioeconomically radical ANC. It is impossible for the ANC to end its relationship with the trade unions: they are instead forced to pamper their sacred partners because of the basic empowerment by the partisans of the ANC to stay in power after 2019.85,89

Khumalo’s89 question on the future of the labour unions is significant89:13: “…one couldn’t help but wonder whether Cosatu, and the trade unions in general, still have relevance to the workers of SA”. This irrelevance was erased by the indestructibility of the ANC’s dependence on the unions’ ongoing massive power at the voting boxes. The arrogant ideas and demands of the secretary-general of Nafcor, Monga Phaladi85, that billions in cash in the private sector must be made available to the public sector by means of a “social compact” is a good example of how the unions abuse their power.85,89

Phaladi85 seems to overlook the risk that private money would go down the drain, as happened with the state’s money when it was captured by the Zuptoids with this obligation he puts on the private business sector to service the needs of the unions by whatever means they think well. His suggestion85:13: “From corporations’ side, it would be an extremely good gesture if the CEOs of the top 40 on the JSE donated their 2019 increases to a fund run by a council of eminent South Africans to support good causes that have an economic impact”, shows a lack of understanding of sound business principles. Phaladi85 makes no reference to the ANC MPs and ANC ministers or of himself making the same kinds of contributions to his 2019-helpline. Or is this expected donation by the top 40 on the JSE in line with the ANC’s grab-and-run policy from its early revolutionary days that is echoed by their intended land expropriation?85

The closed-door politics of the private business sector and their immense fighting by all means behind the curtains of the political hooligans in the ANC and EFF on the nationalization of private assets and capital has made it impossible since 1994 for the radicals in the ANC to put their hands on the private funds in the private business sector. The White farming sector has less of a defence against the land expropriation attack of the radicals in the ANC because of the open door that the Apartheid history created. This situation makes land ownership ideal as a first step towards their greater project of nationalization of White assets. At the same time land expropriation as a mean of nationalization offers direct free capital/assets with which the ANC regime can solve the Black unemployment, Black poverty and inequality. Thirdly, land expropriation can become a political powerbase for the ANC regime to obtain voters’ support from the poor and landless Blacks in the 2019 election.

3.6.2.3 Constant decline of politics and economics

On inspection is it clear that the dire economic situation of South Africa will only continue to worsen, unless the ANC regime of 2019 can reform itself and stabilise its governing system, policies, vision, mission and short- and long-term aims to assure greater confidence so that they can get private support and capital by creating and promoting of a healthier environment for the business sector. The Ramaphosa regime has thus far failed on all the business and political markers to do a positive turn-around. It is significant that the Zuma regime’s crooks have not yet been purged from the system. In one of South Africa’s partners in BRICS there has been a cleansing of corrupted state servants. Until June 2018, 144 executives, bureaucrats and political actors had been sentenced to more than 1 464 years in jail, while the Gupta’s and Zuma specific are still all free and respected burghers.90

The antagonists believe that South Africa’s crisis of governance that started in 1994 has led to an economic crisis with time, bringing down democracy and its good rules. It is now at the point where it is making criminal behaviour in government possible. The ANC is turning to land-grabbing to distract the attention from the ANC regime’s manifold failures and unsolvable crises. They also offer the poor and landless false hope and financial solutions for the poverty, unemployment and inequality. Land expropriation without compensation from Whites is central to this false solutions.90 Davies pinpoints the only solution to these manifold crises very well with his short remark90: 3: “Until the politics are fixed, there is little vision for the economy”.

For the antagonist, the above proves that Ramaphosa and the ANC do not have the political ability and trustworthiness to be mandated rulers of South Africa. Nelson Mandela failed to turn Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa into good political heirs. The antagonists have started to publically questioning the continuation of the present Ramaphosa-ANC regime after analysing the recent insignificant Ramaphosa economic Stimulus Package and Ramaphosa’s many ongoing commissions of inquiry through which it seems he is walking a political path without a destination.74,77,78,91,92

Mthombothi91 rightfully describes the worrying aetiology of the many useless Ramaphosa commissions without a clear destinantion91:17: “We now have these commissions coming out of our ears. It seems our president can’t help himself”. Mthombothi91elaborates further91:17:

“The commissions could end up tripping over each other though. We have the all-compassing state capture commission under Raymond Zondo and the Nugent inquiry into the devastation at Sars. This week Ramaphosa obliged with another, one that will investigate poor decisions and possible corruption at the PIC that could cost the country billions.”

Bruce92 elaborates on Ramaphosa’s use of commissions to indicate how it relates to his failing leadership92:16: “Now he is thinking about a parallel inquiry into the so-called “rogue unit” story at Sars, which led to the forced departures of some of its best managers”. (Note: these good managers departed not only under Zuma as president, but also under Ramaphosa as vice-president). Bruce92 pinpointed this leadership failure of Ramaphosa further with the reference92:16: “Ramaphosa has an inspired way of “not doing anything”. For the antagonists the question is essential: if there is not quality and sound leadership in the ANC at present, how can there be quality and sound economics? In this context the antagonists feel that the hard facts already show that there is no quality and sound economics at the moment in South Africa under the ANC and that the country is in a constant down spiral of politics and economics. The question is pertinent for the antagonists: What are awaiting South Africans in general and the Whites under attack specific because of their land ownership?

Mthombothi91 further reveals the current comprehensive political instability of the Ramaphosa-ANC regime. In addition, the ANC regime under the stumbling leadership of Ramaphosa has to cope also with a low-level civil war in parts of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), specifically among the ANC members. Mthombothi91, in reference to the status of the ANC leadership of Ramaphosa in KZN, reflects91:17: “[the] region where he is least popular is almost an understatement. He is reviled by some in his own party”. Mthombothi91 elaborates further91:17:

People are being butchered almost daily in townships and even small rural villages up and down the province. The country averts its eyes. It doesn’t want to know. AS KwaZulu-Natal premier Willies Mchunu noted when tabling the report [the Moerane commission of Inquiry into political killings in KwaZulu-Natal] before the legislature last month, these killings are taking place at local government level. And they continue unabated. Another councillor was gunned down in Umlazi, outside Durban, on Thursday night. No big deal. It’s when high-profile politicians, such as Sindiso Magaqa, the former secretary-general of the ANC Youth League, are killed that the country takes note. Violence has almost become our way of life.

The problem for KZN is that the police and its intelligence services have been compromised. They have found to be complicit in most of the murders, killing for one faction or the other, or simply turning a blind eye.

Bruce92 also reflects on the growing insufficient governing of the total South Africa by the Ramaphosa-ANC regime.

For the antagonists, two questions become pertinent when they look at the way the ANC regime has cranked the South African economy lifeless; their current senseless actions like land-grabbing to solve unsolvable economic problems; and their focussed attack on the racial unity created by Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. Firstly, are these fatalistic actions of Ramaphosa and the ANC elite culminating of their political obituaries written in anticipation?74,77,78 Secondly, as it becomes more and more clear for the antagonists that the country is moving towards a total collapse fast due to the failure of the ANC as a democratic and effective regime, is there any sense to hang on to land ownership while their lives can be the first to be lost? The anarchy in the Black areas of KZN and the failure of the police and the intelligence services to safeguard even other Black lives in KZN is becoming a wake-up call for antagonists all over South Africa to think very, very deeply about their future in South Africa after 2019. Prominent, as said, is land ownership.91

What is prominent for the antagonists at this stage is that as the country’s economy becomes more lifeless, the more extreme land expropriation without compensation will be forced down on the Whites to draw every sent of their assets and to distract attention from messes of the politically ill ANC. Only a new political party can make a turn-around and even then it will take the new regime years to re-establish some form of stability and self-respect in the country’s psyche.

3.6.3. The ANC’s political and business models

The antagonists argue that the ANC regime’s business and political model with which to plan and to run large state enterprises with success from 1994 to 2019 is one enormous failure. This stems basically from the ANC party’s inability as a liberation organization to create and to add to the value of any existing enterprise under its jurisdiction (This inclination to fail is a world-wide phenomenon of most of liberation movements that came to power as governments). The ANC’s financial and managerial failures are aggravated by the corruption inherent to the system, which is reflected by the state capture on all the financial and political levels during its governance of South Africa.93-97

3.6.3.1. State enterprises

Steenhuisen98 points out when reflecting on the ANC’s various forms of financial delinquency, that in state-owned entities alone it has resulted in R161 -billion being wasted on bailouts, subsidies and capital injections since 2008, while at the South African Revenue Service, state-capture and mismanagement has gobbled up R140 billion in lost revenues. The known losses suffered are be more than R300 billion (22% of the national revenue budget for the period 2017/2018).98

What is of further concern for the antagonists is the financial mismanagement inside the civil service. The total turn-over of the state enterprises under the supervision of the Department of Public Enterprises for 2017 to 2018 was R284 billion, but in total they incurred a loss of R1.6 billion. (The total assets of these state enterprises are more than R1100 billion, with 124 616 employees). Some of these enterprises current financial functioning is so poor and substandard that many experience difficulty to pay their employees’ monthly salaries, while creditors are often not paid. Many of these enterprises are under strain just to stay viable in the short term, while long-term sustainability is a question. What makes it very problematic to obtain a full profile of the financial status of civil enterprises in the past regarding their loss and corruption/fraud count is the absence of legal leverage to force them to indicate illegal spending. Corruption also goes unpunished.99

Constant failures include the SABC, SAA, Denel, Transnet, Telkom, public education and healthcare, public universities, municipalities. Added to this there is the ANC regime’s inability to oversee and control private enterprises to safeguard the state and the public’s money as reflected by the fraud that characterized over a long period the VBS Mutual Bank, the African Bank and Steinhoff.100,101

The mismanagement of the municipalities where the ANC is mostly in charge shows a chaotic history of stealing, corruption, poor service delivery, etc. Prominent is the lack of water delivery to residents or the unlawful actions and lack of respect for democracy. Regarding the delinquent behaviour and actions of many ANC-run municipalities that cut off water to living areas, Phephelaphi Dube100, the director at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, said municipalities must in such a case provide alternative ways to provide residents with access to water. These kinds of delinquent behaviours are indeed juridical misdemeanours and should result in criminal prosecution, but there are never court cases.100 A said Kagiso Mere100 reports that the lack of water at his area forces him to take three hours off work every day to collect water for household use. The total chaos in which he must tryto live every day, he describes in short but comprehensive100: 6: “My boss understands, because he’s also affected. The municipality has endangered our lives. There is s**t everywhere. They were meant to provide us with services, but instead they build themselves nice homes with tar roads to the mayor’s guesthouse”.

At Koster in the North West province, the mismanagement of the ANC mayor and her cronies lead to a situation where she and ten of her councillors had to flee for their lives and hide in “a safe place” in Rustenburg in June 2018, reports Hosken100: 6.

Municipal IQ economist Karen Heese101 reports that the situation for municipalities is very negative, specifically those situated in Limpopo, the Northern Cape and North West where the ANC is mostly in charge. It is mostly due to poor managerial capacity and substandard performances of officials and councillors representing the ANC. It started with a lack of provincial oversight of financial planning by the ANC regime. Only 40% of the municipalities have enough cash or cash equivalents to pay their creditors. It reflects the failure of the ANC regime’s local government business model. A critical analysis shows that only 7% of the country’s municipalities are classified as well functioning, 31% as reasonably functional, 31% as almost dysfunctional and 31% as dysfunctional or distressed.100,101

In most of these clear failures it seems that the ANC elite are often the prominent culprits who engage in money capture and fraud or through associated crooked enterprises. These excellent examples of the ANC elite’s inabilities and lack of skills to manage the country on middle level, further aggravated by their practice of corruption as a daily custom in their work capacities and responsibilities, are in the view of the antagonists also now present in their land reform initiative to create a so-called immense contingent of Black farmers in the future and to erase Black poverty and landlessness. The lack of integrity and honesty with regard to financial and political matters in the government, together with widespread corruption, nepotism and fraud, as well as the well-planned execution of state capture by the top brass of the ANC regime between 1994 and 2019, and their attitude of “don’t care” for the poor and landless Blacks, is seen as ominous for any form of land redistribution from 2019 and onwards. There is no safety net for corruption and misuse. This emphasizes failure of the ANC due to its liberator’s heritage.43,44,93-97,102

3.6.3.2. The Reserve and Land Banks under attack

With regard to business entities like the Reserve Bank and the Land Bank, these entities do their best to steer clear of direct conflicts with the ANC regime on the matter of land grabbing. The fact is that the Reserve Bank can with little effort be nationalized, seeing that only the Act on the Reserve Bank must be changed, which in practice can be done with a general majority decision in parliament. It will be more difficult for the ANC to attack the Reserve Bank’s mandate, seeing that is written into the Constitution and needs a 67% majority to activate change. Given how tempting this is for the ANC and EFF radicals, the Reserve Bank has warned the ANC regime that nationalization is an exercise of which the long-term consequences can be very expensive for the government.103,104

The Land Bank survived years of corruption, looting and maladministration to make a wonderful comeback to become South Africa’s only professional and profit-making state-owned running institution. The irresponsible land grabbing hunger and talks of persons like Ramaphosa and Malema forced its CEO, Tshokolo Nchocho103, to take a tactful stand by warning of the collapse of the Bank if the ANC fails to adhere to some economic sanity. The CEO pointed out the present ANC leadership’s failure to respect the constitution and their interest in using the Land Bank as another vehicle to promote land grabbing as well as state capture103: 9: “…the noise and the uncertainty make our work difficult as development bankers using commercial solutions and commercial resources to address social needs such as employment and enterprise creation”; and: “It is deeply regrettable that this kind of work gets contaminated in the dust of political rhetoric”.

It is clear for Nchocho103, as it is for the antagonists that in this dust of political rhetoric the ANC elite, including Ramaphosa, fails to sort out for themselves what they mean with an “explicit” policy on land expropriation. Even the previous finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, who must know the results of land grabbing and nationalization well and must surely be well-informed on the matter after his intimate experience with the Guptas, seems to have, as the rest of the ANC’s radicals, limited insight on the matter if the following remark of Nchocho103 is true103:9: “Finance minister Nhlanhla Nene has now instructed the Land Bank to provide him with a risk assessment on what expropriation without compensation could mean for the bank”. For a seasoned senior minister, trusted with the keys of the money coffer of the country, to ask such a basic question, is seen by the antagonists as an indication that the nationalization of the Land Bank in the near future has become a reality (again, notes the Guptas in Nune’s earlier past). It emphasizes for the antagonists the blurred and troubled mindset into which the ANC leadership has drifted on human rights, racial doctrine and business ethics.103

To highlight why the Land Bank is a tempting vehicle to promote land grabbing, the following can be mentioned. Firstly, farmers owe the bank R49 billion while the bank itself has liabilities to the tune of R41 billion, meaning every sent will be at risk if farms are confiscated. The bank is completely dependent on outside funders like the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the local fund management industry, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank. These are strong role players in advocating for a good government and who can, if they pull the plug, or just partly back out for fear of land expropriation without compensation, erase the bank’s credit status, bringing fast bankruptcy. It is clear that any action that affects the credit quality of loans and endangering loan repayments will cause its funders to step back. What is the ANC radicals don’t see is the fact that the bank is already a crucial funder of commercial as well as emerging Black farmers. A substantial portion of its loans are production loans, meaning that a pullback by funders will affect agricultural productivity and food security, jobs and transformation of ownership to Black farmers.103,105 Nchocho pointed out the following103:9: “If expropriation without compensation is not handled carefully, the likely consequences don’t bear thinking about”; and: “…the worst-case scenario in the event of widespread expropriation and the removal of property rights is ‘the real destruction of the economic base of agriculture, as well as the economy of the entire country’”.

The plain fact is that bank loans are guaranteed by the National Treasury, and if it must make good on banks that default, it would cause a financial burden on the Treasury, which is already under strong financial pressure. Economic and financial chaos can follow fast.103 The risk for commercial banks in a mad exercise of land expropriation without compensation, whether or not it secures credit for farmers or not, can descend into a chaos in the country’s banking sector and specifically for the Reserve Bank as a pivot.103,105 Our weak economy means that the Reserve Bank cannot take a negative financial experience of this kind alone as Nortjè points out105:9: “There isn’t enough fat in the system for the Reserve Bank to bail out another bank [like African Bank].

3.6.3.3. Impact of the current rule

The chaotic outcome described above103,106,107, activated by the autocratic and blind man style of political thinking and rule of the ANC since 1994, is also well-illustrated by Kuseni Dlamini106, the chair of Aspen Pharmacare and Massmart Holdings, in his perspective on the 10th BRICS Summit of July 2018, by identifying three crucial shortcomings in the ANC regime’s (and now also Ramaphosa’s) reign since 1994106:9:

1) A lack of investors’ confidence and growth-enhancing structural reforms under the ANC. Prominent in this total context are the absence of fit-for-purpose state-owned enterprises as result of the ANC’s style of tolerance of mediocrity and corruption, lack of a culture of high performance, lack of accountability, and a lack of consequence management and leadership of integrity and quality. The question is: how can the country attract foreign investors as its local investors lack trust in the government;

2) The ANC’s aimless and confusing intention of land expropriation without compensation is a driver away of investors: they want to know precise the imbalance in land ownership is going to be executed. So far the ANC only reflects their outdated liberation instinct;

3) The ANC’s failed policy on the mining economy and its future ownership as result of the ongoing policy of uncertainty and unpredictability of the ANC regime on a clear and sound Mining Charter. The hard fact is that the South African mining-sector is a thin shadow of its past as a contributor to the country’s coffer or to employment. Where in the 1970s to 1980s every R100 made in the economy so much as R21 came from the mining, is it contributed now only R7 to the economy.

The ANC’s radicals who promote RST and RET, which includes land- and mine expropriation, don’t see the devastating effect on the upkeep of current employment when dead and dying gold- and other kinds of mining towns emerge and the sources of salaries, which assure the functioning of poor towns in Eastern Cape, stop. Add to this the food shortages that can follow after the land grabbing of White farms and the collapse of food production, as happened in Zimbabwe. This makes the antagonists fear a fourth industrial revolution. Again, in this present chaos of the country’s economics, Black poverty and joblessness, promising already only better lifestyles for a few fortunate ones, while unemployment among the untrained in the diminishing labour market will gear-up at high speed. It seems as if the radicals lack some constructive and responsible future and strategy on what economics, work availability (forget growth), society- and family stability are.103,106,108

The basic outcomes of above aimless political thinking, planning and actions by the ANC elite have led to a lack of trust and cooperation for the local business sector. This is a situation which is further aggravated by the government’s ignoring of the talents of the local business sector to bring know-how and solutions to the government’s (mostly self-created) problems. The local business sector should take a prominent position in policy-making to advance the greater society’s interests directly in government. It’s a setup which will mean balanced control of state affairs and the end of the ANC’s way of ruling. Instead the local business sector is made a permanent and sometimes a very hostile opposition.106

Indeed, distrust of the ANC regime as a governmental safe-keep of taxpayer money is very high amongst many South Africans, not only for the antagonists. An international 2016 study that tested the opinions of the citizens of various African countries as percentages indicates respectively the following trust counts: 73% for Namibia, 71% for Tanzania and 50% for Mozambique, while the count was only 40% for South Africa. This outcome offers strong support for the anti-land-transformers’ objections to any form of future land redistribution; basically because it is seen as another public enterprise failure: not only because the ANC regime lacks managerial ability and skills, but because it lacks most of all honesty on money-matters. The ANC regime is soaked in corruption and theft of state assets. These, again, are all actions, as already indicated, which seem to be driven by ANC’s liberator’s selfishness and opportunism and its aim to the exclusive enrichment of a few ANC elites.93-97

The antagonists associate what they think is a certain devastating “Zuma corruption outcome” of the ANC’s pending land redistribution as something that is cemented in most liberation organizations when they come to rule. Such organizations, notwithstanding many political face-lifts, never change their corrupted mindsets. Radical political thinking, planning and doing stay the centre of al liberation movements and it becomes clear when the regime starts to fail the country and its people’s interests. Extreme actions (like we are seeing in Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Sudan), ignoring the short- or long-term consequences to assure political and racial harmony and economic stabilities, follows and it takes years to repair. The way Angola went down-hill during the reign of José Eduardo dos Santos and the crooked Dos Santos family’s endemic corruption for the duration of his 38-year reign (only 14 years more than the ANC’s reign where a Jacob Zuma and his son Duduzane and daughter Duduzile were allegedly also busy with delinquent actions), could not be turned around by Joäo Lourenço since 2014. This is basically because, although the new president tried in public his best to remove members of the Dos Santos family from top government posts and charges were laid against crooked officials, the country leadership fails again because the new leader, Lourenço, was a contaminated member of the Dos Santos regime that he now tries to fight. As the leaders in current Zimbabwe after Mugabe, he is just continuing on another path of political sickness in a corrupted African liberation movement and it is devastating Angola’s economics and international integrity (although less openly as under José Eduardo dos Santosa.38,43,44,69,73,102,109–117

The above Angolan political delinquent path, the antagonists reflect, is fully in line with the ANC’s political delinquency since 1994 and a regime in which Ramaphosa as the new president was also a prominent role-player as parliamentarian and vice-president from day one. Political chaos and economic chaos go hand-in-hand in the future ANC regime. For the antagonists the IMF’s structural adjustment programme that Angola is now facing is not far away for the incurable South African political sickness. Note and remember the reality: The ANC is a prominent liberation-movement-cum-government: indeed, the oldest in Africa.38,43,44,69,73,102,109,111-117

Venezuela is very similar to the ANC’s foolish political reign since 1994. The antagonists point out that in Venezuela, where Nicolás Maduro at present reigns, the currency Bolivar was previously nearly a dozen times devalued by his predecessor Hogo Chávez (1999–2013); a process started for the first time by his predecessor president Luis Herrera Campins in 1983. Chávez himself chopped three zeroes off the currency a decade ago. In August 2018, Venezuela started with a currency devaluation of 95% under Maduro, taking the country further into hunger and hyperinflation. At present the country’s inflation is running over 100 000%. Food and medicine are scarce, while more than 3 million citizens have fled to neighbouring countries. Maduro’s economic plan, as Zuma’s and now it seems Ramaphosa’s, was marked by inconsistencies, lacking clear specifications on aims, developments and plans, and of course saturated by corruption and disrespect for the Venezuelans. Maduro is turning Venezuela into a basket case, far removed from its previous status as one of Latin America’s wealthiest countries. South Africa is moving in the same direction in the view of the antagonists.118

For the antagonists South Africa’s similar failure loomed with the technical recession in August 2018. Ramaphosa’s search for $100 billion in foreign investments will become a hollow call if his expropriation without compensation starts to run. Money can leave the country faster than it comes in. His attraction of foreign capital since he took the leadership based on “secured commitments of R464 billion worth of investment from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the UK”, is prominent in his political rhetoric. These “letters of intent” are something else than true investments: last is determined by political stability, not the instability in the class of Angola, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Sudan.43,44,119

The resistance by critics, especially the White land owners and capital holders, to the ANC’s intended land redistribution, is more than justified and understandable in the context of the ANC’s liberation and crooked inclinations and doings in this context since 1994. For the antagonists the present conflict around land ownership has one tragic outcome: There is going to be one winner: the ANC, and one loser: the White land owners.

3.6.4. The ANC’s economics viewed critically

3.6.4.1. The failure of the ANC’s economic plans since 1994

Current South African political and economic researchers are in agreement with Geen’s opinion of more than 80 years ago that a an improved economy and social functioning for South Africa can only be delivered by the job market of urban areas, and not an economy bound to the rural farming setup. The antagonists believe that this must be also the main aim and focus of the ANC regime. The current opportunistic and radical socioeconomic reform by the ANC regime, with their emphasis on a “back to the country” redeployment of masses of poor and landless Blacks on farmland to be expropriated exclusively from White farmers, needs evaluation and description. This planned socioeconomic engineering is reminiscent of the communist regimes in Russia under Stalin and China under Mao. As in the failed Russian-Chinese-experiment on land-reform and their redeployment of people to the countryside, “masses” of people are central in the planned Ramaphosa-ANC-back-to-the-country-scheme. In terms of South Africa’s population of between 50 and 55 million, “masses” means nothing less than the majority of people, which can be between 25 and 30 million persons. The rural placement of even 10% of the South African population (meaning 5 to 6 million of the population out of 50 to 55 million) for a successful living on the “to be expropriated” White farmland, is not in any way economically viable or sustainable. It is a doomed scheme. This dooming last resort by the ANC regime to address the country’s many seemingly unbridgeable economic ills and crises with radical actions like land grabbing, makes it prominent to ask the question what the ANC regime did so far in terms of other economic plans and initiatives since 1994 to better South Africa before they fell into despair.120-122

In light of above economic and financial negativity, is it important to reflect on the business plans and initiatives based on an urban-rural-orientation of the ANC regime since 1994. Firstly, the ANC’s must promote the National Development Plan (NDP) of job creation via small and medium enterprises (SME) as a successful policy intervention for upliftment the poor Blacks. A research project by the SBI (the old Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut) shows that the ANC misuses estimates that lack hard evidence in the reflection of their so-called SME-successes, writes Joffe.121The ANC regime has failed to create small enterprises, notwithstanding it’s NDP “caring policy”. This outcome of failure was reflected by the Indaba on small businesses held in July 2018, which pointed out the ANC’s failed economic policy to nurture small and medium enterprises. Indeed, the notion of the National Development Plan that SMEs will create most of South Africa’s growth and jobs (the vision of the sector is to create 90% of 11 million new jobs by 2030 and contribute 60% to 80% of the GDP growth), is “little more than a pipe dream”.120-122

Joffe121 shows, using the findings of the SBI, that the formal SME-sector (defined as firms registered for tax purposes and which employ fewer than 200 people) is much les than as the ANC’s rhetoric reflects (disarming their claims of a strong SME-sector). This group (classed as small- medium and micro-enterprises) represents only about a quarter of a million (250 000) enterprises with a contribution to employment to South Africa of only 28% job absorption (against a global of 60% to 70%), notwithstanding the fact that it forms 98.5% of all the registered firms in 2016. This finding is drastically lower than the estimated 1.2 million between 6 million postulates by the ANC regime in reflecting on their initiative to better the South African economy. Fifty-six per cent of jobs are provided by 1 000 larger enterprises, which includes the government as an employer (which is show to over-employs wherein political loyalty at the voting-box plays a strong role). A study by RED13X3 of the University of Cape Town reveals that the informal business sector, consisting of 1.4 million enterprises which are functioning outside the tax-net, provides only more or less 17% employment, mostly at a very low level of payment. Most formal SMEs are struggling in a very hostile business environment, varying from regulatory hurdles, red tape, as well as a lack of access to capital and skills development. Their contribution to the cross inland GDP is also relatively lower than previously reflected by the ANC regime in praising their false economic initiatives. Joffe121 also reports that more than 60% of them employ fewer than 10 people and that about 70% of them fail within the first two years of start-up.120-124

Research by the Small-business Institute, supported by data of South African Income Services(SAID), shows in short the following South African setup in 2016: 176 333 micro-enterprises (fewer than 10 workers, accommodating 5.1% workers), 68 494 SMEs (11 to 50 workers, accommodating 11% workers), and 17 397 middle-level enterprises (51 to 200 workers, accommodating 12% workers). In total SMEs accommodated 3 863 104 persons, or 29% of working South Africans.121,124

For the antagonists this failure by the ANC regime is a clear warning of an economy in decline, reflecting growing poverty and a failed ANC regime coming from 1994.121 In this regard is it important to note that in 2011 the South African economy was R5.7 trillion, while it retracted to R4.8 trillion in 2018.121,125

Exclusive land redistribution without compensation as a successful way to reform South Africa’s collapsing economy, racial inequality and Black poverty, is a failed option as Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China already confirm and which the present radical land reform in Venezuela is in the process of confirming. Land redistribution without compensation will only contribute further to decrease and to degrade the South African economy. If the ANC’s economic plans and initiatives since 1994 could not move the country positively, how can land stealing do better?121-123,126

Speckman123 warning is pertinent when writes123: 5: “South Africa is on the brink of a fiscal cliff and unless the economy improves significantly the government could find itself in Washington, cap in the hand, begging a rescue package from the IMF.”

The technical recession that kicked in September 2018 can be the final straw breaking the ANC regime’s back. They have already started begging as its BRICS-partner, Brazil, is already doing.123

Derby125, with his eye on a seemingly unavoidable future IMF intervention in South Africa as a result of the ANC regime’s ongoing economic failures, notwithstanding their attempts, points out the origin of it in its revolutionary and radical economics foundation, spelling only doomed economic and political outcomes. This focuses the attention on the immense lack of economic and political talent of Ramaphosa and his men to bring a New Dawn to current South Africa, to be the result of “birds of the same feathers coming from the failed Zuma regime”; in the present political context only the “sound bites have changed”, like the absence of the term “radical”, when government officials and ANC politicians speak of economic transformation. Does this absence of political and economic radicalism now mean that the nationalization of banks and mines are dead? Derby’s125 answer in this context is sharp125:2: “The answer is quite simply no. It’s an argument that will live again, but, with the country closing in on possible IMF assistance (should the economy not move into high gear, and soon), it’s one that lies dormant. However, as an idea, it lives on and will be recycled some time in the future, when the state of plays allows.”

The ANC elite’s radicalism on land grabbing may also become dormant in 2019 in the ANC regime’s search for IMF assistance. It will become more aggressive in practice when the circumstances for ANC radicalism arise again. The safe-net of the Western economy, notwithstanding the “re-colonization” of South Africa after 1994 by the Chinese and Russians and the ANC’s hostile rhetoric against the West, especially the USA, can be the only rescuer of South Africa after 2019.125

For the antagonists the fact is there that the country is in a far worse position at present than when the ANC regime implemented their other economic plan, namely the five-year Growth, Employment, and Redistribution Strategy (Gear) in 1996. It was supposedly focused on privatization and the removal of exchange control, but it failed because of the revolutionary/liberation ideology that incorporated the radicalism of the trade unions and the communists on the ownership of land. Notwithstanding a short-term improvement in the economy with raw-material exports to China after 1994, this economic positivity was erased inside the ANC’s failed economic-political system, while the ANC’s failed policy brought constant economic uncertainty. This poor economic situation was further aggravated by the failure of the state-owned institutions to be free from corruption, mismanagement and state capture (while last-mentioned came down directly because of the ANC regime’s revolutionary/liberations ideology that had effected its integrity, political standards and ethics).123,127,128

South Africa’s debt-to-GDP, as well as the growing annual shortfall versus income, is another good example of the constant failure of the economic plans and initiatives of the ANC regime, which is bringing the country in economic disarray. From a 27.8% debt-to-GDP ratio in 2008 it has risen to record high of over 53% in 2017, moving upwards to the 60% notch now. The debt-to-GDP ratio forecast by the Treasury for the 2020–2023 financial year, is 56% (from the previous 60%). Although this number is far from the 180% of Greece, George Glynos warns, the MD of ETM Analytics, the movement to the 60% mark spells danger. It is important to note that the GDP has risen from 25% at the end of Trevor Manuel’s tenure as finance minister with a pick-up on the start-up of the Zuma presidency and the followed-up ministers to rise to 50%, before moving to 53%.123,127-129

With regard to the country’s income it is important to reflect that the National Treasury collected R71.34 billion for the 2017–2018 financial year and is predicting an additional R1.22 billion for 2018–2019, leaving shortfall of nearly R48 to R50 billion. This shortfall is pushed-up by Zuma’s feeble fee-free higher education and training scheme (accepted without obstruction by the ANC regime and its leaders like Ramaphosa), accepted in December 2017 and requiring a further R57 billion in new allocation over the next three years. This means a deficit of R28 billion and R57 billion (R85-billion) respectively for 2018–2019, funding that is only solvable by borrowing or by the rising tax, which has a domino effect on investment, consumption, standard of living, job creation and inequality. The severity of this domino effect of constant and growing shortfalls is confirmed by the paying of R180 billion this year alone in interest charges. For Khumalo the present failed ANC regime’s economics only spells chaos when he looks at the allocation of R85-billion against a mere R36-billion from tax increases in this year’s budget.123,127,128

It must also be noted, writes Speckman,129:4 that, notwithstanding a spending cut of R85 billion for 2018–2019 and the revising of the budget deficit over the next two years down to 3.6% from 4.3%, the total expenditure in reality for the coming year is R1.67 trillion, which negatively represents a 2% real growth in expenditure. David French, tax consulting director of Mazars, points out that South Africa has been steadily increasing its official spending levels for a number of years now, with negative consequences for the economics, as the technically recession starting in September 2018 confirms. This failed economic setup of the ANC regime makes the constant worry over the growing debt-to-GDP understandable. Inside this failed economic network it is also clear why the value of land deprecated with nearly 30% this year, even before land grabbing became a prominent and controversial issue.123,127-129

As were with Stalin and Mao in their ongoing failed political regimes (driven by a political system of Communism characterized by corruption, suppression, state-capture under autocracy), the present ANC regime and Ramaphosa need a drastic attention distraction from their ongoing failed economic policy to stay in power after 2019. Inside the context of distraction and political manipulation, the internalized characteristics of the ANC as a revolutionary movement, offers land expropriation without compensation, an excellent opportunity for the ANC regime to do the so-called “donkey’s carrot” kind of economic upliftment of its poor and landless Black supporters while costing the ANC regime basically nothing.123,127-129

For the antagonists the ANC regime with its total failure to create wealth through SME and to erase the debt-to-GDP, together with their intended land expropriation without compensation, is as a wantonly agent, not only to impoverish the land’s White agriculture sector, but to keep in place the syndrome of a masses of “poor and landless Blacks” as a “partisan powerbase” to overrule and limit the democratic statutory institutes and the Constitution. This crooked political setup that had kept the ANC in power since 1994 with its executive top-leader, was the basis of Jacob Zuma’s reign and is now spilling over to the Ramaphosa-reign. The main aim of this ANC political delinquency is to diminish and limited the development and presence of a strong Black middle class [leaving a small group of favoured and empowered crooked ANC elites at the top and a massive class of extremely poor people on the lower socioeconomically level; a group who mostly sees and accepts the ANC regime and its elite as their unquestionable saviours (many of this group have become financial and emotional dependence in their daily living of the ANC regime, as reflected that so much as 40% of them receives in one form at least a social grant)]. The Black middle class, who mostly oppose the autocratic and crooked politics of the ANC regime, underwrites democratic capitalism and are thus mostly anti-ANC. This group is essential to economic growth and to addressing inequality because they create jobs and stimulate a large economic umbrella to uplift the poor and landless Blacks, especially outside the agricultural sector.130,131

This ANC’s economic and governmental failings and their political short-sightedness and delinquency, not only drives away the Black middle class, but has also forced them into poverty. This outcome has a serious negative impact on the upholding of the economic initiative in the country.130,131

The loss of the Black middle class, together with the capitalist business sector and the labour sector, which has become anti-ANC due to the ANC’s corruption, is a prominent determinant in cutting the political size of the ANC, making it a dwarf of its past.132,133 Musyoka132 describes this diminishing of the ANC precisely132:18: “The emperor was left with no clothes, having lost support from three influential constituencies – capital, labour and the black middle class”

Regarding the Black middle class’ present economic empowerment and status, Musyoka132 shows that they as a group (forming 20% of the total population) contributes more than any other group to tax revenue, forming 40% of the labour force (although they tend to be a stagnant group of around eight to nine million), receives between 30% to 35% of the employment income, owns just under 10% of the country’s wealth and represent 85% of all that is spent in the country notwithstanding their 20% part of the population. They are being side-lined by the ANC regime and left under-developed to generate wealth for the country and to contribute to tax revenue.132,133

The current income of the middle class is shown by research of National Income Dynamics Study and Southern Africa Labour and Development Unit (SALDU) of the University of Cape Town at this stage to be much lower than the previous official estimates. From this data only one in five (20%) South Africans have a disposable income of at least R2 900 per month (earning gross around R 7000 per month) and are at all times open to falling into poverty. This 20% group is faced with financial obligations to jobless and poor family members, making them very sensitive to poverty status.133The presence of a burgeoning Black middle class is “a figment of the national imagination”, posits Professor Murray Leibbrand133:5, the director of SALDU.

The underdevelopment of the Black middle class are especially driven by the lack of an established SME sector, a lack of training and education, and the injustices done by BBBEE to enrich only a selective small group of Black elites. The ANC regime’s allegation that the lack of farmland and farming opportunities is a role player underdevelopment of Blacks are factors is false. This outcome confirms again the ANC’s failure to execute its’ promised economic plans and initiatives.132,133

The antagonists argue, as Geen134 did 80 years ago, that the cornerstone to erase Black poverty and landlessness is education to equip poor Blacks to fulfil to the demands and functions of highly paid jobs. This makes urbanization crucial. Land expropriation without compensation lacks the ability and pittance for the masses of poor Blacks to make a financial turn-around. The land matter serves only as a front to cover up the ANC’s manifold political failures, as reflected above by their inability to develop a successful SME sector and a flourishing Black middle class.132-134

The sudden A-h-a-experience of the ANC regime that the farming sector is one of the least transformed sectors and that through land expropriation without compensation the situation can and will be corrected is an untruth that shows the failure of ANC regime to understand the economy and where in the economic and business sectors the solutions lie. Tshandu108 points out that the retail sector of South Africa is the least transformed sector in terms of ownership, despite its 59.97% contribution to GDP through consumer spending. The Department of Trade and Industry’s rhetoric that White domination of the retail sector is not acceptable and that “new players should emerge, especially those owned by Black people”, is an empty promise to address the racial inclusivity of the retail sector, notwithstanding a strong Black labour union present in the sector to force change. Tshandu108 reports that according to Empowerdex’s 2017 Most Empowered Companies List, the grocery chain Spar Group has only Black ownership of 6.35%, while its female Black ownership stands on 2.35%. Africa’s largest retailer, Shoprite, has a Black ownership of 8.65% and a female Black ownership of 4.29%. The Black ownership of Clicks is 18.5% with a female Black ownership standing on 8.75%. The exception possibly Woolworths with a Black ownership of 37.2% and a female Black ownership standing on 16.02%.108,135,136 The answer to this failed transformation of the retail sector is described by Nomozamo Xaba108, an executive of Empowerdex, as follows108:10: “Customers such as you and me are unlikely to inquire about our supplier’s contribution to BBBEE before we buy bread and milk…and so there is little pressure for this sector to transform”.

In the above context the question is why the White farmers sector is the focus while less than 3 500 (10%) of farmers provide more than 90% of the country’s food? Why the pressure on the agricultural sector to transfer? As often reflected in this research, the antagonists believe there are more sinister reasons behind the land grabbing of the ANC regime that have nothing to do with sound economic plans and initiatives.108,135,136

This “passivity of customers in the retail trade” bring the antagonists back to the sudden positioning of the agriculture industry and land ownership in the mindsets of the post-Zuma leadership: Are White land ownership and the White-farmers’ contribution to BBBEE, besides their successful constant delivery of affordable food produce to customers, really a concern of the masses of Blacks of whom so much as 90% do not want to farm or to live on rural farmland as they have adopted a Western culture? For the antagonists a much more masked political agenda, driven fiercely by a segment of political radicals, is present: the presence of Whites in general. The White farmers are a first target, basically because of their political isolation and their vulnerability on isolated farms. In this context the opinion of some antagonists is that land redistribution without compensation is plain a lingering hate of some radical Blacks and their revenge on earlier White supremacy and wrongdoings. This is also an exercise driven by the ANC’s internalized culture of terrorism, which includes land terrorism and –grabbing to take the best (the good and developed farmland of Whites in 2018) for themselves without paying for it. This reminds one of the “Zupta” state capture.41,108,135,136

3.6.4.2. The ANC’s ongoing economic battles

As history always confirms when it comes to politicians and their antics: politicians never learn – they get into the same wars for the same reasons as hundreds before them, only to suffer the same endings. Sometimes they lose the battles but win the war; sometimes they win the battles but lose the war; and then sometimes they lose the battles and the war, leaving them with no hope or opportunity to return to their previous glory. It happened with the KhoiKhoi and KhoiSan who took on the migrating Blacks and Whites. They were wiped out of the South African politics.137,138

Now in 2019 we see it again with the foolishness of the ANC regime, supported by a segment of the landless and poor Blacks in exchange for their votes in the 2019 election. The antagonists view Ramaphosa’s view on land redistribution as a power game with the masses. 138,139

Viewing land redistribution as a financial comes at a heavy cost in the end. 26, 50-76 Land expropriation is political “adventure” that the ANC government cannot pay from the state’s coffer and normal taxes or from national/international loans because of their dubitable intentions.140 One easy and tempting way out of it, in terms of its political drive as a terroristic-cum-liberation-cum-democratic political party, is for the ANC to fall back on their basic political philosophy of grabbing and destroying, as Mthombothi140 reports140:17: “…to destroy stable economic systems because they were unable to run from 1994 a passable governments and must now fall back by the “redistribution” of the wealth of their “conquered” rich Whites through land grabbing and stealing from the minority and non-defendable individuals and groups.”

Khumalo141 roots the behaviour of the ANC well141:10: “At some point, especially with limited resources, we need to prioritise, or as young people say, ‘we need to pick a struggle’ ”.

This ANC’s “struggle-picking” is a long-standing culture, cemented into it a terrorist and liberation instinct to obtain without input, like their practices of RET and RST, where land-grabbing is now a primary element. The antagonists’ comments on the economic and judicial wrongdoings of the ANC are confirmed by the scepticism of the formal business sector that the ANC can create wealth in a honest way because of their lack of political integrity, business inability and bad political intentions. 26, 50-76

There are many negative realities related to land redistribution that must be spelled out all involved, from existing land owners to new land owners and banks, to prepare everyone involved and to handle it as applicably and practically as possible. One must remember that although the ANC’s ongoing losing economic battles will cost the country and the good South Africans enormously in personal and economic integrity and values. The ANC elite will be left untouched (as Jacob Zuma) for their manifold wrongdoings coming from 1994. The good South African must prepare him/her for this one-sided suffering. Derby142 brings these negative (and conflicting) realities well to the foreground and openness when he writes142:2:

But of course, as part of land reform, some farmers will find themselves having to carve up their lands; one can’t ignore our shared history.

Land reform comes with great upheaval as it involves taking land from those who have it and giving it to those who don’t. To unleash it, title deeds are necessary. Landowners, white farmers, the government and our chiefs and kings need to buy in so South Africa can reap the economic rewards.

The issue of land reform should not be left to political parties to use as a populist ticket either for or against. It’s necessary to fix the structural fault lines in the South African economy.

3.6.4.3. Killing the goose that lays the golden egg

The arguments, opinions and viewpoints offered by the ANC regime that drastic land reform is unavoidable to uplift the poor and landless Blacks financially to give them entrance to farming and the economy, together with their idea that the whole process of land expropriation will in no way affect South Africa’s economic status in general, is seen by antagonists as either a total ANC myth dissociated from any reality, or a well-masked plan of evil-doing to Whites. In this context, the criticism is specific that the ANC regime (and many of Black politicians, activists and radicals promoting land exportation) plainly lacks a sound understanding of the negative principles of economics: the comprehensive negative impact of nationalization of any private asset(s) is prominent. In the Ramamania it seems to be specific White assets. In terms of the antagonists’ argumentation it is propagated that forcible redistribution without compensation will have disastrous effects (not only for the rich Whites), but all over for the South African economy to include the masse of poor Blacks with time. It is argued that the ANC regime land expropriation scheme, even before it is in practice, will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The outrage of big private enterprises is already significant and it foresees the coming loss in foreign investments that will make South Africa more and more a risk for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to rescue.143

The term golden egg refers to the broader South African economics in which the land expropriation issue can be seen as one link among many that form the chain of the current South African troubled economy and its many ills. To understand in the first place the three elements poverty, unemployment, inequality in relation to poor economic planning and policy, homelessness, economic aggression and conflict, racism etc., which all stand central to land expropriation, some economic role players, determinants and drivers are evaluated and described in this sub-division.

3.6.4.3.1. Poverty can devour all riches

If the ANC regime is hoping that the effects of land grabbing on the economics would be minimal when they do it as a once-off quick and hard cleansing by implementing land grabbing with absolute no changes thereafter, they are in for a surprise argue the antagonists. Also, to argue that such a fast, hard solution by the ANC regime of land grabbing will work because investors and individuals can accept and deal with losses fast and that they only dislike short-term uncertainties reflects a lack of understanding of the basic principles of economics. The loss of land ownership is a loss that is different from the individual shareholders of a company that went bankrupt (or is even nationalized). Farmers lose their much loved land, their source of income and their basic assets for their old age. Then there is the clear racism factor of political, social and economic discrimination because the losers are in the ANC’s case only Whites. They don’t even offer them sound evidence as to why they are losing their land versus the outcome as winners only Blacks without any reasons to show why they have to benefit.144

An all-out RET, of which land grabbing is a primary component, will still leave poor South Africans poverty-stricken. Fourie143 shows that if the total wealth of the approximately 38 500 millionaires of South Africa (which includes a significant number of Blacks) is paid out in cash to each South African citizen, the amount received by each citizen will be a single payment of R38 282.00. If this amount is wisely invested for 10% interest (tax-free), the monthly income would only be R319.00 per month, which is not much of an income if the current average monthly income of R7 750.00 for Black households is insufficient to take them out of poverty. For the antagonists it is clear that persons like Ramaphosa, Malema and their intimate cronies, besotted with land grabbing from Whites, do not really understand the basics of economy.143

Research shows that if the more or less 35 000 commercial farmers active in 2018 is halved, there will be only 17 500 farmers in the system. For these 17 500 farmers to be successful in terms of Western/White or even modern African lifestyles and standards and to be sufficient in own financial needs (which the 35 000 existing farmers are already struggling to do) without raping the present economic and farming system or directly or indirectly harming the livelihoods of others involved in the farming sector, is just not possible. The fact that farm labourers are some the lowest paid workers and some the poorest people in our country, have not changed when they moved from commercial White farms or subsistence Black farms. It is simply impossible to create new opportunities for more farmers and labourers in the agricultural sector in a decent compensation/payment-system when the whole setup goes broke.135,143

When the more or less 35 000 commercial farms today active in South Africa (and which as a total group currently contribute 95% of South Africa’s food output,) are each turned over to ten Black families, it will only create work for 6% of the South African jobless. In this kind of “informal” farming there will be an immense cost to produce, while the individual structures to upkeep farming will not be affordable given the income generated. It is postulated that this kind of subsistence farming model will not generate enough for a single family to live on, not even speaking of producing food for the country.143 The Ramaphosa myth of successful land expropriation and the establishment of a mass of successful Black farmers, is interpreted by the antagonists as just another failed African economic dream and a failed ANC experiment. It is wishful thinking, nothing more.135,136,143

The antagonists, look at the above facts, find it difficult to listen to the claim of Mamphele Ramphele38 of ReimagineSA during her promotion of land expropriation as a governmental instrument to return land to Blacks as a source of pride, wellbeing and for sustainable social stability to Blacks, as well as job-creation in the farming sector, null and void when she postulates38:21: “Why can’t the promotion of jobs and better education be part of more land restitution within a well-planned development process?”. Her much argued other postulations, offered with enthusiasm about the relevance of blind land expropriation as an absolute need for survival of the individual, turned out to be myths lacking economic intelligence. It is echoed by the failure of the experiment of socialism/Marxism in Venezuela by Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.38,103,136,143

The potential and ability of Ramaphosa and his cronies to bring economic success to poor and landless Blacks and the country as a whole with land expropriation without compensation of White land, the anti-reformers reflect again on the ANC’s well-known continuing farming failures (The postulation here is that the ANC regime only obtained a 10% success in the placing new farmers from 1994 to 2018). Soko103 pinpointed these constant failures of the ANC, especially on farming103: 9: “That’s because it’s one thing to give land to people, but if you don’t give them adequate support and advice and so on, it’s not going to work”.

Glorifying the exclusive farming enterprises to absorb more Black workers and farm owners, like with the lone-standing macadamia-nut farming where the produce of just over 700 South African farmers gives the country a 34.4% of the world market in 2017 (against Australia’s 37%), is a false bravado to support land expropriation. Firstly, this kind of structured specialist farming is an expensive and long-term investment, but it does not need many workers. Secondly, this sector forms part of a very competitive world market. There is a lack of understanding (besides the presence of loads of aimless emotions in their propagation of the creation of a large contingent of farmers) by propagandists of land expropriation of the limitations South Africa’s geography puts on farming. The downsizing of expensive farming is well-illustrated by the effect of mechanising to side-line the high costs created for farming by regulation agricultural labour. To reinvigorate agriculture via land expropriation to offer the poor and landless Blacks richness, or even an affordable life-style, is only a fantasy of the ANC. Statistics confirms this over and over. In 2017, agriculture, together with forestry and fishing, contributed a meagre 2.6% to the country’s GDP and could only accommodate 5.3% employees of the total labour market. (At the moment agriculture is growing at a negative of less than -20%). If the numbers double positively through land reform, the contribution to the GDP and employment will only be 5.2% and 10.3% respectively.38,44,103,127,136,143

Derby145 takes this issue further by pointing out the chaos in waiting with land grabbing (even with compensation) to cut poverty and unemployment and to phase out inequality between Black and White. The established farming sector is already financially unstable and risky. He writes145: 2:

I’m certain that in the farming sector today, you’d find quite a few farmers more than willing to offload their assets to the state. With only 4% of farms in the country generating a turnover of more than R5m, and the vast majority indebted to the tune of more than R160bn to both private bankers (R129bn-plus) and the Land Bank (R40bn), there’ll be many willing to sign off all their liabilities.

These are just some of the financial realities of farming, which are best captured by the struggles of milk farmers in the Free State, the North West and Mpumalanga – realities that we need to consider rather carefully as we seek to speed up what has been a land reform process that has been blighted by bureaucratic failure of the state.

The ANC’s intentions can destabilize the presently stable farming sector and rob it of its richness and devastate its successful farmers, leaving the country food insecure overnight.

3.6.4.3.2. Rural poverty as a public killer

Robust growth of the South African economy in terms of training, the availability of work, and industrial development is needed to solve the socioeconomic problems now prevalent, not land-grabbing. The country’s political setup and integrity must be able to generate inland capital and growth on its own. The way to move towards this is immediate bettering of the regime’s relationship with the country’s business sector for direct all-over investments and developments, and not increasing dependence on unstable foreign capital flows.146

The IMF’s “Article lV” of August 2018 reports that the South African state under the ANC has become caught up in irresponsible debt-making. The report reflects on why our public debt doubled in the past decade. At the core stands mismanagement of state funding, theft and corruption and inappropriate development of useless projects. It shows that the ANC regime’s debt has doubled since the 2008/2009 global crisis to reach now 53% of the GDP. The IMF147 reflects that this was entirely driven by the government’s irresponsible constant increased spending on the public sector wage bill as number one, followed by interests on debts and social grants. The wage bill and social grants expenditures are mostly for political opportunism at the voter box. They do nothing to boost growth, but indeed boost growing debt, making the IMF very doubtful of the country’s financial future.147

This IMF147 outcome is in line with Soko’s103: 9 view that the Black youths “are not interested in farming or land, they want jobs”, basically because of the poverty catch in agriculture. This postulation is also confirmed by the IRR-finding and the government themselves in that only 8% of land compensations that were awarded between 1994 and 2018 to Black claimants were in the form of land as compensation. The story of Ramaphosa and his cronies that farming by Blacks can bring work and sound economics – for which they need much land, making land grabbing the most logical (but undoubtedly the cheapest) way to provide land, is nothing but an economic farce. The base of truth is that land as a source of income per individual cannot deliver the same income as a job. The constant decline in the number of South African farmers from 116 000 in 1950 to more or less 36 000 in 2018 (± 1 000 per annum) confirms this reality about the viability and sustainability of a career in farming. The failure (50%) of the placement of seemingly well-qualified and selected Whites (mostly Afrikaners) in the 1930s in a land redistribution scheme by the White regime and the Dutch Reform Church (DRC) to solve the Poor Whites Problem, confirms that the placement of masses of poor people on land mostly does not work. The solution to the present poverty and inequality is to promote urbanization with the development of cities with modern facilities and infrastructure, the development of industries to create jobs, better education and training, etc.38,103,136,143

Africa has become the world’s most rapidly urbanizing continent, reports Pilling148. A study of the World Bank indicates that 472 million people in sub-Sahara are already living in cities. High birth rates and migration from the countryside has caused the African urban population to double to 1 billion people by 2014. From 2015 to 2045 the Mckinsey Consultancy148 estimates that 24 million more Africans will be living in cities each year, basically as a result of the rate of real GDP-growth due to the productivity in cities. South Africa is part of this immense urbanization trend: neither the ANC regime, nor Ramaphosa will be able to stop it.148

Farming careers in the present South African farming situation is risky. Aggravating this by adding masses of poverty stricken Blacks spells only disaster. There are better solutions to improve the situation of poor and landless Blacks. This is a situation in which the formal business sector as a primary activator and generator of capital, economy and jobs, stands central. Indeed, it is the only entity with the power to steer the economy of the country to functionality. However, the ANC has failed to enter into a partnership with the business sector.50

Ruralisation and its farming setup as a primary artery for the country’s economics was dropped nearly 80 years ago in South Africa after an earlier similar effort to address inequality and poverty, specific among the Whites. It was clear for the then White regime of South Africa that exclusive land ownership and –work in the rural area as an instrument for the upliftment of the Poor Afrikaner, were not favourable. Interestingly, this early report also referred to the poor and landless Blacks in the country-side. It also mentioned that exclusive land ownership and –work in the rural area as an instrument for the upliftment of the Poor Blacks were less favourable. As for the Whites, it was also believed that working and living in towns would bring financial and economic rehabilitation. Geen134 writes in 1939s, nearly 80 years ago, as follows on this troubling matter (which antagonists say is now re-emerging by the ANC’s foolishness in South Africa)134:20:

… the development of South African industries will provide more work for all classes of the community, including the Poor Whites, many of better sort of whom have found employment in the towns, for example in the mining industry or in the police force. The Carnegie Commission did not consider that the best place for the Poor Whites was necessarily on the land. In fact, in their Report the commissioners stated that industrial work in the towns was “one of the most potent means of bringing about their economic rehabilitation”.

The ANC regime’s present economic plan and initiative of land expropriation to redeploy masses of poor and landless Blacks to the country-side as farmers and labourers is nothing else than the planned killing of these people through extreme poverty and famine.

3.6.5. The ANC’s politics viewed critically

3.6.5.1. The ANC’s capitalist-democratic failure

The myth of the ANC as the sincere care-taker of all South Africans, guaranteeing rights like land ownership, even respecting the simple citizen’s rights of Blacks, is a farce in the view of the antagonists. South Africa under the ANC is at the edge of an abyss, shackled into captivity by masses of parasites, acting even against the poor Blacks masses with contempt. The broadcast journalist and author, Redi Tlhabi,149 touches on the truth when she remarks149: 18: “Sometimes it feels like this government [ANC] hates Black people, like its predecessor [NP]”.

If some of the sincerest members of the ANC start to distrust the Party, how can they expect the opposition or those against the ANC’s land-reform inclinations, to trust them? Read the reaction that Mongane Wally Serote150, a South African award-winning poet and novelist, a long-standing member of the ANC and chairman of the ANC Stalwarts and Veterans, wrote on the 12th November 2017 in a well-known local newspaper on the failing and corrupted ANC150: 18: “The crisis resides in the hijacking of the ANC by corrupt elements who, despite their rhetoric, are completely bereft of the basic civic consciousness that had been the hallmark of ANC genealogy for many decades”.

But is Serote150 a late-comer to the choir bemoaning the current ANC’s corruption? Not at all: The ANC icon, the most honourable president Nelson Mandela151, pointed out in a public speech in 1999 (20 years before Serote’s remarks and only five years after the “1994-independence”) the immense corruption in the ANC when he said151:571:

Among the new cadres in various levels of governance you find individuals who are corrupt – if not more – those they found in government. When a leader in a provincially legislature siphons off resources meant to fund service by legislators to the people: when employees of a government institution, set up to help empower those who were excluded by apartheid, defraud it for own enrichment, then we must admit that we are a sick society.

Even the South African Communist Party (SACP), well-known for its radical Marxist ideology, has reflected on the present integrity of the ANC regime, which went down the drain the day of Jacob Zuma’s reappointment as president in 2007. The SACP states that although the ANC’s bad improved for a while after 2007, the integrity crisis restarted soon thereafter, not only with greater magnitude, but with the worst of corruption cemented into its foundation. In short, even for the SACP, also a liberation movement by excellence, it has become clear in 2018 that state power and a Constitution shaped for presidential autocracy is too important to be left in the hands of the corrupted ANC as a regime. This “formal letter of disapproval” by the SACP is also applicable to president Ramaphosa and his regime, reflecting back on his intended drastic land reform with its disastrous outcome for White land owners, poor Blacks and the country’s economics.152

The Zondo Commission of Inquiry is an excellent example for the antagonists of the political (if not also mental) madness of the ANC as a regime and as a party (and the danger for South Africa if they stay on as the regime after 2019). Zizi Kodwa54, the ANC’s head of the presidency at Luthuli House, made an arrogant declaration in the Sunday Times of 26 August 2018, reading54: 22: “The ANC is not on trial at the commission of inquiry into state capture”. It reflects not only a lack of consciousness what is right or wrong in the ANC elite, but also the lack of ability and integrity to take responsibility for their involvement in corruption as a regime and party from 1994 up to today.54

Mr Kodwa and his co-leaders in the ANC elite are seemingly newcomers from Mars. The ANC and all its tentacles lack shame.98,153,154

Steenhuisen98, DA MP, the chief whip of the opposition in the parliament, hits it right on the spot when he nullifies Kodwa’s and the other ANC’s like Ramaphosa’s plea of innocence when it comes to state capture and crookery, which flourished over the last eight years, when he says98: 24: “Those in the ANC who latterly claim they were not aware of what was happening, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, are frankly insulting the intelligent South Africa public. It is simply inconceivable that the capture of the state and associated shenanigans were unknown to a large segment of the ANC top leadership”.

For the opponents it is of interests that Kodwa54 and the remaining Zuma cronies in the ANC and the present leaders have to appear before the Zondo Commission to explain how the South African state was stolen under their watch. Such cleansing can give some insight into the role land expropriation without compensation played in present and past state capture. Land expropriation without compensation seems to have its roots into the Zuma-Gupta-ANC elite, reflecting again another well-planned outcome to bring riches for the ANC’s elite, instead of helping the poor and landless Blacks. On Kodwa’s “innocent plea” of not guilty on behalf of himself and the ANC in total, Munusamy153 gives him sound and wise advice153:26: “It is not acceptable for the ANC to wash its hands of accountability for state capture simply because it removed the chief enabler from power”. What she should have added is that the “other enablers” are still inside the ANC elite and regime, and that their hands are very, very dirty.153,154

The antagonists do not have to gather their own evidence of contamination of the country’s politics: numerous political overseers have done it well for them.155-158

The seasoned political journalist, Ranjeni Munusamy153,159, did it when she reflected on how the ANC’s 54th national conference at Nasrec in December 2017 just rubber-stamped the Zuma regime’s crookery: not only ignoring Zuma’s ousting of persons of integrity in the ANC elite and senior posts, but approving it. The Guptas’ state capture and the undermining of state security were by the ANC leaders denied, even contradicted as false. It is totally contradicted by the dangerous extent of Zuma’s criminality: his crooking with the Guptas went as far by them trying to clinch a deal on the five stored South African nuclear warheads, forcing the CIA in 2009 officially to warn the South African authorities to prevent this.153,159

The denial of wrongdoings by Zuma’s and some of the leaders of ANC at the Nasrec-conference are contradicted by hard facts. Munusamy153 refers as follows153:22:

The ANC national executive committee (NEC) had been told that the Guptas had prior knowledge of Zuma’s 2010 and 2011 cabinet reshuffles. In fact, the Gupta-owned newspaper The New Age in 2011 published an accurate prediction of Zuma’s cabinet changes before he announced them.

These were just some of the signals that the Guptas had commandeered control of the state and the capture of the ANC’s highest elite [to make South Africa a tripartite governmental state: on lowest level the Parliament; on middle-level Luthuli-house and its ANC NEC; and on top-level the Gupta-clan].

Yet the ANC did not question the usurping of its political power, did not come out in support of Nene when he was fired, and allowed Jonas to dangle in the wind when he exposed the Guptas.

The ANC NEC shut down an internal investigation into state capture and buried its head in the sand.

Not even the great Zuma vanquisher, President Cyril Ramaphosa, had anything to say about the Gupta infestation in the state until he was ready to make a bid for the ANC leadership.

The crookedness of some of the ANC’s elite with the Guptas is even more evident from the testimony of Mcebisi Jonas153 before the Zondo Commission when he said that after his refusal to take a bribe of R600 million of the Guptas, they threatened to kill him if he disclosed what had transpired. There was another threat to Jonas by Ajay Gupta who said the Gupta family has the ability to destroy his political career.153

On the corrupted Gupta management of Jacob Zuma, Munusamy153 reports as follows on Jonas’s testimony153: 22:

The whole state was in favour of state capture”, Jonas said. He said the Treasury was utterly dependent on political support, particularly from the president, but it did not have it.

He testified about how Gupta bragged that he and his brothers were the de facto rulers of SA. “You must understand, we are in control of everything”, Jonas alleged Gupta told him, citing the NPA, the Hawks and the intelligence services. “The old man [Zuma] will do anything we want him to do”.

There is no indication that this was not true. Zuma made no attempt to distance himself from the [Gupta] family or to act to protect the state from their looting spree.

All the evidence shows that the ANC is not able to steer a land redistribution programme. This means that their potential to make the comprehensive land expropriation programme a success is doubtful. Tony Leon160, a former leader of the opposition in the South African parliament and a former ambassador to Argentina, writes that the ANC regime cannot even ensure regular electricity or even basic sanitation at primary schools, or safely care for psychiatric patients, but, notwithstanding these failures, they in their foolishness want to govern every facet of life, economics, and politics in South Africa. This failure includes for the opponents also their lives and belongings.160

Leon160 is correct with his postulation that South Africa is already in chaos. Claims that civil society is currently doing the best ever and that the credit agency Moody’s decision not to down-scale South Africa can be taken as evidence of a healthy economy are false. These postulations are based on short-term manifestations that mask the reality of a greater collapse in waiting (It was expected that a further degrading of the country for instance by Moody in March 2018 to lower than Baa3 and an outlook of stable, could have immediately trigger the exit of about R100 billion). South Africa’s reprieve with Moody is only a short-term improvement of the economy before end of 2018/early 2019 and it was done to give the country under Ramaphosa a chance “to sort out South Africa’s problems”. Moody is clearly not going to take off pressure off the country. Remember: Moody’s is the only one of the three largest international rating agencies still to have the government’s foreign- and rand-denominated debt on investment grade.119,160-164

Looking to the various rating agencies’ probations of the financial behaviour of South Africa, Joffe165 reflects165:9: “Chances are that the rating agencies will wait to see what happens at election time [2019]. But SA’s fiscal and growth risks could well see them put us back on watch for a downgrade before the end of this year [2018]”. With the revenue shortfall estimated by PwC at R6 billion (It could be so much as R10-billion), the chance of the worst is high.165

A degrading factor for the rating agencies that can evoke a fast the exit of R100 billion and more is the formal constitutional implementation of land grabbing and the loss of investor trust in the ANC regime. It be noted that Africa as a whole is facing a new wave of debt distress as the US hikes signal the end of cheap money, which can bring a funding crisis. Confidence is one of the key drivers to get South Africa into the international economy: The South African economy has been lacking international and national trust for a long time and will lack it for a long time in the future. The sweet-talk of pro-ANC economists and senior appointments in South African institutions are not going to help much.119,161-164

Leon160 points out that the ANC still has an appetite to encroach ever further into the sections of the country’s economy and that this actually appears to bring more chaos160: 22: “All these our political masters want to control. Or anaesthetize. Or close down”.

The failure of the ANC as a trustworthy regime and as a party, reflecting again on their unpredictable and inappropriate behaviour on the land expropriation issue, lies in their lack of a culture of integrity. It doesn’t matter for the ANC if its leaders committed murder or other wrongdoings, as long it is for the “party’s benefit” and inside its “ideology of liberation”. The party remains loyal to the accused and their doings, even after they have been found guilty. On the 29th of July 2018 no less than 26 tainted individuals held positions in the national (NEC) and provincial (PEC) executive committees, varying from 12 in NEC positions to 14 in PEC positions. These culprits form such a contingent in the power-base of the ANC that they are referred to as “The Rogues Gallery”. Despite being convicted of fraud, Tony Yengeni, Ruth Bhengu and Bathabile Dlamini sit on the NEC, while the ANC whip Jackson Mthembu was convicted of drunk driving. The present minister of policing, Bheki Cele, was fired as the National Police Commissioner in 2011 after being found guilty of improper conduct and maladministration and a finding of being unfit to hold office. The immediate question for the antagonists is how a serious matter like land expropriation can be entrusted to these people if they cannot even can handle their own affairs with honesty and dignity.27

The antagonists’ most poignant question is why these ANC rogues are being allowed into important political positions by the ANC-party and regime. The ANC’s spokesman, Pule Mabe27 (himself sanctioned by parliament for failing to declare his interest in a company doing business with the rail agency Prasa), gives the answer27: 4: “…there was nothing wrong with convicted people occupying influential positions, as the ANC believes in rehabilitation. ‘When individuals rise out of their own shortcomings, regardless of what those could be, they must be given an opportunity to come back and be part of a fully-fledged society’.”

This “humanistic-criminal rule” can be acceptable in some cases for the non-dangerous person who derailed, but it becomes a problem to maintain an honest government if a significant part of its leaders are “rehabilitated criminals” and psychopathic individuals. The questions for the antagonists are: 1) Why are the ANC attracting the interest and membership to its leadership of such a high percentage of delinquents and criminals?; and: 2) Why in the first place did these leaders “fall” into delinquency and crime?; 3) Seen from a psychological point of view, what are their so called “shortcomings” (is it psychopathic or what else?)? The ANC’s answer on the presence of rogues in its top structure is very simple, namely that it believes that members who have been charged in court can remain in good standing because they have not yet been convicted. ANC’s leaders, like Mike Mabuyakhulu who is out on R50 000 bail after being arrested for alleged corruption, Mathabo Leeto who stands accused of awarding a R15 million contract without due process, Nozillo Mashiya who stands accused of using a council credit card to buy R10 000 of liquor, Zukiswa Ncitha and Sindiswa Gomba who are facing charges related to the Nelson Mandela funeral scandal, are prominent ANC’s deemed “innocent until proven otherwise” in terms of Mabe’s explanation. The antagonists’ gut feeling is that the expropriation of land without compensation is going to be a great temptation for many of the seasoned criminals in senior ANC positions. The antagonists’ view that state capture via land grabbing will continue, seems more and more to be correct.27

Leon160 feels that the current South Africa, captured by the ANC, resembles Otto Bismarck’s view of the ambitious but short-sighted 19th-century Italy160: 22: “It has a large appetite but poor teeth”.

3.6.5.2. A new kind of state capture

The myth presented by the ANC regime and its leaders is that the intended land expropriation of Whites is solely aimed at rectifying so-called White injustices committed against Blacks during Apartheid and colonialism, which, as they argue, created the current immense problems of poor and landless Blacks. Antagonists see this point of view as false. These kinds of utterances and rhetoric are seen by the antagonists as habits and customs of the ANC to distract the attention away from their own past and present wrongdoings and their current delinquent intentions. The antagonists read other more serious intentions into the whole process. What underlies the land grabbing is state capture. The antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints are not unfounded in this regard: all the signs of capturing are present. The vagueness about what the process will entail and how it would increase landownership for the poor holds potential for state capturing, either through bribes, fraud or the theft of these “new government properties” freshly taken from the White farmers. Zuma’s corrupt cronies are still present in the system, some in very senior positions. Many of these persons are undoubtedly directly involved in driving the expropriation scheme.111,166-179

At the recent parliamentary hearing at Rustenburg, North West in 2018 on the suggested change to Section 25, the Black community gave voice to their immense distrust in the ANC regime to handle the process honestly. For them the ANC regime’s land expropriation is just a possible ongoing state capture, as illustrated when a said Rubosweni Mmelene35 says that he wants to support the change but feared the effects of rampant corruption in the North West province, which is run by the ANC, and which in the end can result in an outcome that can leave the poor and landless Blacks untouched by any improvement. Mmelene states35: 22: “I understand 87% of land belongs to whites. I want to agree with the amendment but because of the corruption in this province, it is difficult”.

The above confirms the fears of the antagonists. The antagonists especially point to the radicals in the ANC elite’s refusal to state how the expropriation is going to happen, specifically who will hold the titles deeds, who the recipients of the land would be, how people will qualify for land, for what the land will be used, etc. The other concern is the numerous corrupt ANC members in office. The question is what and who is going to stop them in the future: Did Ramaphosa or the ANC regime reappointed them for a specific purpose?111

This existence of delinquency and crooked officials in the current Ramaphosa regime is well-illustrated in an editorial of the Star111, dated 2018 July 16. The editor writes111: 10: “The dismal side is that so many on the public payroll continue to palm millions surreptitiously while supposedly serving South Africans, in spite of repeated and widely publicized instructions against this”.

In this regard the editorial states that 721 of the country’s most senior public servants are moonlighting without disclosure, forming part of a total of 1 943 public service managers who are directors of private and public companies, while there are hundreds of senior officials doing remunerative work outside the public service. KwaZulu-Natal (also the base of Jacob Zuma and his faction in the ANC NEC) seems to be the provinces the most guilty of misconduct by officials: 30 top officials, including two director-generals, two deputy DGs, five chief directors and 21 directors, received alone gifts worth close to R900 000.111,166-179

The level of corruption is illustrated by the high-level official with the rank of director-general in the provincial Eastern Cape government in the looting of the state funds in relation to the memorial and funeral services for Nelson Mandela, as well as her further involvement in a tender scandal of R171 million and a misdirection of the provincial government in 2013 into channelling about R300 million of taxpayers’ money into the Eastern Cape Development Corporation. This entrenchment of corruption means that the financial outcome of land distribution can leave both Black and Whites poor and landless.111,166-179

There has also been a loss of officials with integrity as the Zuma and his cronies systematically attacked these individuals from 2009 and ousted them. Some of the Zuma cronies are still there. The editor179 of the Sunday Times wrote with great concern on the 3rd December 2017 on this matter of crooks who have now captured even Luthuli House, as well as resurfacing of these bad guys soaked in Zuma-kinds of manipulating and crookery, to clear out the last portions of integrity left of the country’s official system (Prominent are theses crooks steering further the country of the various state-agencies, even the security agency).179 The editor writes179: 20:

What makes this problematic is that his [Zuma] only interest with such agencies is that they protect him and his associates from any harm, and not necessarily the country.

His appointments to the top jobs in the intelligence ministry as well the state security agencies have always been of his close comrades, who he believes would secure his interests. Any sign that a minister, a director-general or any other senior official was putting the interests of the country ahead of those of the president and his associates has often led to the immediate dismissal. Just ask Moe Shaik, Gibson Njenje, Sonto Kudjoe, Simon Ntombela and other securocrats who have found they rubbing the president and his associates up the wrong way.

A further indicator of the ANC regime’s administrative collapse, starting immediately in 1994, is reported by the May report (2016–2017) of the Office of the Auditor-General180. It is sobering and depressing reading. The report shows that only 33 out 257 municipalities received clean audits, while irregular expenditure at local government level amounted R28.37 billion.180-182 (If the wasted money was managed correctly, 1.3 million of South Africans could be accommodated in public work job programmes for a full year, 3 500 pit latrines at schools could be replaced, 14% of shack-dwellers could be accommodated in properly built homes and VAT reduced instead of increased.)180-182 The lack of proper financial management (mostly due to corruption, theft and fraud) by the ANC regime is further evident from the way municipalities failed to collect money for services rendered to inhabitants, the private sector and governmental departments inside municipalities. In total municipalities are owed R139 billion by service users, meaning they don’t have the funds to pay Eskom for electricity used. In total, municipalities, as a result of service users not paying, owe Eskom as much as R27.8 billion. The total debt of the ten municipalities with the most debt amounts to R11.8-billion. 180-183

These failed municipalities are well described by Dan Sebabi182, a senior member of the South African provincial legislature’s cooperative governance and traditional affairs committee. He points out specifically the role of crooked politicians and corrupt municipal officials in theft from the deposits transferred of municipalities’ union funds to the now VBS Mutual Bank under curatorship (more than R1,5 billion is involved).181,182

It goes deeper as many political and financial analysts already have indicated. The ANC regime is largely ignoring all these warning signs of the presence of corruption because its intimate members are directly and indirectly involved. When the ANC elite is faced with a problem (which they can either not solve or do not want to stop because of their criminal benefitting from it) they simply try to lay it to rest with extreme, unworkable political promises that generate more conflict (and more opportunity for theft), like offering free land to the landless and poor Blacks via land expropriation without compensation from Whites. Sebabi182 reacts to these failures, thefts and corruption by ANC-cadres as follows182: 2: “You are plunging Limpopo into a ball of fire. You tell our people you invest money when they don’t have water, when they don’t have roads. What do you expect our people to say? How do you expect them to respond?”

This corrupted setup around many of the ANC regimes’ governing bodies and leaders did not, as illustrated by the antagonists, change in culture or after staff replacements following the departure of Zuma. The ANC’s “new era” under Ramaphosa looks for the antagonists much like the ANC’s “old one” under Zuma. There are just not any constructive signs of true political renewal and integrity under the leadership of Ramaphosa to steer land reform honestly to benefit the poor and to isolate the opportunity for land capturing.111,181,182,184

The following editorial writing confirms the immense culture of corruption inside the ANC regime and the state well111:10: “The extent of the undesirable practices it [Public Service Commission – PCS] found points to the monumental task facing Ramaphosa in cleaning up the government. It will take years, great stamina and the will to be ruthless wherever the rot is found”.

The telling stories of Sidimba and Sifile185 on the above kind of dodgy and highly irregular transactions all over South African under the ANC – something that can quickly spills over to land redistribution – reaffirm the current corrupted culture still in the post-Zuma period in the South African government, when they write185: 1: “Shocking widespread corruption, fraud, theft and mismanagement of hundreds of millions of rand at the Municipal Councillors’ Pension Fund (MCPF) has been referred to the Hawks by its curators”. How serious these dodgy deals are, is the fact that its referral to the Hawks was in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.

3.6.6. ANC regime inside the BRICS-kabaya

South Africa’s position in BRICS was supposed to bring massive growth. However, the fact is that not even a quarter of what the ANC promised became a reality. What is clear is that South Africa already started to barter away its political and economic independence. An editorial186 in the Sunday Times praises the importance of South Africa being a BRICS-partner as follows186:18: “For South Africa, it is important that we remain in this powerful group, even though it may seem as if we don’t belong”. His comment is foolish: it indeed seems as if South Africa does not belong in this partnership. The cruel facts are there. It is clear that the ANC elite want to belong to BRICS for other questionable reasons and intentions. These delinquent intentions are also applicable to Russia and China, eyeing South Africa for more than noble reasons.186-188

The claim that the five BRICS countries comprise 40% of the world’s population (3 billion persons) with a growing portion of the world trade – producing more than 30% of manufacturing goods and 50% of agricultural products, that it is responsible for 22% of world’s GDP and that the inter-BRICS transactions form 17% of world trade and investments and has growth in 2017–2018 with 10%, and that the inter-trade between BRICS countries has risen from R203 billion in 2010 to R460-billion in 2017 – is misleading. It is precisely this over-populations (the populations of China and India make up 87% or 2.7 billion of the total BRICS’s population of 3 billion) and poverties associated with it, which is keeping true development away. At the end of 2017 the collective size of BRICS (four initial BRIC members without South Africa) was valued at $19 trillion (R256 trillion) and it is alleged that the Block will overtake the Group Seven (G7) by size of economy in 2035. In truth, is it only China and India that are growing, with South Africa, Brazil and Russia sitting in the low level of growth (with South Africa the clear odd one). South Africa’s contribution to the total BRICS GDP of $16 000 billion in 2016 was only 2%, placing it far below Russia’s 7%, Brazil’s 11%, India’s 13% and China’s 67%. Our GDP is only $300 billion compared to China’s $11 trillion, while Brazil, India and Russia have all passed the trillion dollar GDP mark. Furthermore, our unemployment situation is chaotic in comparison with the four other BRICS countries: for South Africa is it officially a staggering 26% (unofficially it can be between 55% and 60%), while for China it is 2.2% and the other three partners beneath 10%. Our investment imbalance with BRICS results in outflows of $60 billion in cash to purchase goods and services from our BRICS partners while the inflow of cash from them into South Africa is only $18 billion. Looking at it critically, South Africa under Ramaphosa could be vulnerable to the same kind of opportunistic Zuma abuse by its BRICS partners.186-188

This reality makes the remark we have much to gain from the block by the editor186 of the Sunday Times laughable. The fact that South Africa is small fry alongside the BRICS giants makes the whole BRICS set-up controversial and a dangerous political and economic play by the ANC regime.186

The South African minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Lindiwe Sisulu’s view that South Africa is a star in BRICS, is also laughed off by the antagonists. Very little of the foreign investment of $750 billion that China is planning will be allocated to South Africa. Although the two-way China-South African trade reached $39.17 billion, it is an imbalanced one with China in the exporter position, with South Africa as the loser. There are more dangerous determinants for South Africa in BRICS, something the ANC regime knows well, but it does not like to reveal this to the public and their voters. The danger of a repeat of the corrupt Mahlobo-nuclear-Zuma-Putin deal is prominent.187-188

Jim O’Neill188, the former Goldman Sachs executive and an expert on BRICS, put ideas of an advanced and rich South Africa in making in BRICS to sleep when he said in May 2018188: 22:

…almost since the day the political leaders agreed to invite South Africa to join the club Brics, South Africa has been disappointing. Frankly, I wouldn’t have made that decision because even if South Africa had enjoyed strong GDP growth, it is never going to be an especially large economy as it doesn’t have a lot of people. Even if it enjoyed enormous productivity growth it would never get to the size of the top 20 economies of the world.

The ANC elite became confused by their own false doctrine of South Africa’s importance in the international trade and politics, a manifestation O’Neill188 already points out. To say South Africa played and is playing an active role in the creation of the G20 and that the country under the ANC has established itself in many international forums as a strong voice, is a farce. What is prominent is that it aligned itself with the radical elements running many of the failed autocratic and Marxist impoverished world states that had become more and more isolated from respected stable democracies. At most one can say that at the time of its inclusion into the G20 South Africa was the largest economy on the African continent, characterized by established capital markets, relatively modern infrastructure, a robust regulatory environment and strong institutions, but since the entrance of the Zuma regime these many good descriptions became sorely ghosts from the past. Even its partnership with BRICS’s New Development Bank can not make much good to South Africa’s constant down-spiral and political chaos.189

The BRICS New Development Bank’s vice-president and CFO, Leslie Maasdorp189, makes the following very poignant remark189: 7:

Commentators interpret this R1-trillion target as foreign direct investment, but in most instances, including China, only a small percentage of gross investment comes from outside its borders.

The bulk of the investments in infrastructure and new equipment typically come from domestic savings. Stimulating domestic investment in South Africa is the most critical task.

In the same breath Maasdorp189 tries to relate domestic investments in South Africa to the China, Singapore and Korea economical solution. It is far-fetched. Maasdorp relates189: 7: “Some of the most successful investment destinations, such as China, Korea, Singapore and others, have built up their investments rates at between 30% and 45% of GDP. What this means is that out of R100 of income, on average R30 to R45 is re-invested in the form of new factories, new infrastructure and equipment.”

What Maasdorp189 and many other propagandists miss, is the simple fact that the ordinary South Africans are poor, domestic savings are minimal because there is no money left to save. There is immense distrust between the ANC regime and private investors. South Africa’s economic development is delayed by the demands of the labour unions, which are essentially part of the ANC regime. The country’s institutions are saturated by state capture and corruption, while Marxist extremism has been the basis of government since 2009. These outcomes nullify the entry of new factories, new infrastructure and equipment, even the good aim of the BRICS Bank to uplift South Africa.

Looking critically at the BRICS constellation, O’Neill188 shows that BRICS’s success stands solely on China’s relevance and dominance188:1: “Who would care about BRI, or BRIS, without China”, asks O’Neil188. Notwithstanding the low level position of South Africa in BRICS and its poor chances to really ever benefit immensely from the BRICS-kabaya, South Africa has value for China’s “imperial dreams”: it is primarily a bridgehead into Africa for China to steer its political (and growing military) influence and trade of essential products. These aims, visions and doings of Communist China are seemingly in line with that of some of the radicals in the “new” revolutionary ANC-party who put the country’s interests in second place to their self-enrichment and empowerment via China.188

South Africa’s membership of BRICS reflects a clear picture of a failed state coming from 1994 that is hanging onto the other radical states in an effort to survive the present. For the antagonists South Africa has since 1994 become a politically failed state under the ANC regime and its political radicals. Its failed economics is a direct result of this. André Perfeito90, the chief economist at Gradual CCTVM, describes the twining of Brazil and South Africa’s failed situations when he says90: 3: “Brazil’s problem is not economic, it’s political, so is South Africa’s problem”.

Martyn Davies90, the MD of Emerging Markets and Africa at Deloitte, also emphasises that there are other stark similarities, varying from economic to politics, between the two countries that do not bode well for South Africa. Prominent is corruption scandals involving state-capture. Most of the politicians of both states are contaminated with crookery: in July 2017 the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison for accepting bribes (Zuma has thus far missed this fate and it seems more and more that he is not on his way to be a prisoner like Lula da Silva), while Lula da Silva’s successor, Dilma Rouseff, was impeached in August 2016 for creating an artificial budget surplus by unlawfully allowing loans from state-owned banks to the treasury. Around the corruption monster is it likely that the present Brazil president, Michel Temer, is going to suffer the same kind of fate in the near future. Notwithstanding corruption as a prominent similarity between South Africa and Brazil, Brazil shows still some kind of other goodness that is lacking already South Africa. One is, as said, the failure by the ANC regime to prosecute Zuma and his cronies (of whom many are part of the present ANC elite).90

Davies90 reports between South Africa and Brazil on the prominence and difference on genuine efforts to prosecute political crooks as follows90:3: “According to Transparency International’s 2016 Corruption Perception Index, South Africa and Brazil are in 64th and 77th position respectively. But despite Brazil’s dismal ranking, its judicial system at least continues to function”.

Davies90 writes further on the other many bad similarities between the two countries90:3: “Given the worrying similarities between the leadership of both countries, South Africa could follow in Brazil’s economic footsteps, with a two-year lag”.

At this stage for the antagonists it does not matter if Zuma or if Ramaphosa is the president of the Republic of South Africa, an outright failure and misuse of the whole intended land redistribution is a reality. This is a conclusion that seems difficult to contradict and much of this chaos to execute actions with success is vested in the ANC’s liberation contamination. Ramaphosa, as Zuma, became also fast and easily steered into the political mindsets of the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

With South Africa’s partnership in BRICS, both the two South African leaders’ feet are helped to be cemented in the liberation and revolutionary thinking, planning and doing of their patrons, Brazil, India, China and Russia on the practice of corruption, disrespect for human rights and political manipulation to benefit the regime’s elite. For South Africa it is more and more a case of “re-colonialisation” by its two BRICS partners, namely Russia and China.

Basically, in the South Africa’s re-colonialisation only the country’s foreign mentors and masters changed between1948 to 1994 and from 1994 to the present day: for the NP-regime (1948-1994) the mentors and masters were Western Europe and the USA, and for the ANC regime from 1994 these mentors and masters are China and Russia. Louw138 points out that in 2018, as in 1795, the country is still being governed inside a colonial model by a self-serving minority (this time Blacks of the ANC elite who Boon192 refers to as the African Takers, and similar in style of reigning as that of China and Russia) located at Luthuli House in the name of the masses. This “Black colonialism” and exploitation of other Blacks are internalised in the failed ANC regime, the Gupta-kind-factor of crooking, cadre employment, state capture, extreme corruption and nepotism, with as background South Africa’s Chinese and Russian masters. This ANC regime’s autocratic liberation setup is also seemingly for the antagonists driving their present land-grabbing initiative.138,192

South Africa’s present revolutionary mentality makes it more and more a twin brother with China and its equal revolutionary mentality on business and human ethics and principles. The country’s growing shying away from the USA, Japan and Europe is because the low level of political and business ethics South Africa do practice present-day do not fit in with them anymore. But this shyness to political order drives the country’s currency daily more and more in disorder.193

The editor194 of the Sunday Times points out that when the rand plunges (as it is doing now constantly) it starts immediately to feed into not only political chaos, but intensively economic chaos of a country, eroding its economic and financial foundation independence (and with time also its political base), making it also losing it’s sovereignty. The editorial shows194: 20:

Once a central bank loses its most important attribute, credibility, and that comes with its independence in following its core mandate, a currency is left to the wolves of Wall Street.

At that point, what would be the buying power of the state? Would it ever be able to play its part in stimulating the economy without having to resort to big-money loans from the IMF or the Chinese state? That is where sovereignty is lost.

The ANC regime of South Africa already knocked at the doors of the Russian and Chinese states, putting its sovereignty on a silver tea-tray to be taken.13,15,117

Indeed, for most of the anti-propagandists’ against land reform, the politically contaminated thinking on the regime of Ramaphosa has turned from Ramaphoria to Ramaphobia and Ramareality, and is now heading for Ramafear, and possibly in Ramaflipflop. The White farmers are caught inside this Ramaphoria-Ramafear.73,190,191

3.6.6.1. Russia and the Zuma-Putin-mega-nuclear-deal

The Mahlobo’s nuclear deal points for the antagonists to the built-in negativity of the BRICS-factor to stimulate corruption inside the ANC regime’s lack of sound strategy planning and financial insight and its ever-present corruption. Prominent stands here the obtaining of unaffordable nuclear power from Russia by the corrupted Jacob Zuma and his cronies in collaboration with Russia and its Vladimar Putin. If the disastrous Zuma-Putin-mega-nuclear-deal (better known as the Mahlobo’s nuclear deal, which would include a massive nuclear reactor – besides the acquisition of eight other smaller nuclear power plants), was accepted and activated, it is clear that South Africa’s debt to Russia would be so immense that South Africa went bankrupt and need restructuring to meet its debts, ending in a failed economy and mass unemployment. (To get insight into this immense fraught and corrupted deal just follows the Zondo-commission’s testimony of the ex-Finance minister Nhlanla Nene to see the unaffordable 2015 project’s value for Russia was R1.6-trillion, as approved by the Zuma-cabinet on the 9th December 2015. Note also: Nene went down as minister at the end because of his Guptas-connection). A direct negative outcome (and the most probably if the deal had realised, which was near finalising when Zuma was ousted as president), could be that Russia re-entered the ANC-South African financial-disaster around the ANC’s failure to pay for the nuclear deal by taking possession of South Africa’s guarantees of minerals and mines for the back-up finance of the nuclear-deal to help and to stop bankruptcy of the ANC regime. Through mechanising our mines and direct job-loss by the Russian intervention and interference, a further down-grade economy would follows, activating a totally down-grade of the South African economy with permanent recessions, to create more debts and further mineral concessions to Russia, leading locally not only to massive unemployment, but a total collapsed industry and widespread famine. In such a disastrous outcome — well planned and steered by the self-enrichment of Zuma and his collaborators — very little of South Africa’s sovereignty would remain.195-198

Dino Galetti195, a researcher at the Universities of Johannesburg and Yale, describes the possible catastrophic outcome if the Mahlobo’s nuclear deal would had been accepted, as follows195:22: “Ultimately, we become a colony of Russia in all but name, since we owe them a never-decreasing amount even when they own much of the country’s resources”.

For the antagonists the ANC elite, up to the presidency, lack the basic integrity to guard the interests of the individual South African. Neither do they have any consciousness about impoverishing the South African Nation life-long. Re-colonisation by a foreign country does not bother the ANC elite at present, as their affiliations with Russia and China confirms. Even the revised Ramaphosa New Nuclear Deal shows signs of possible corruption and the potential to bring, as the Mahlobo’s nuclear deal, at the end the same way of devastating economy for South Africa and making the country a subordinate of Russia: a distant part of “Putinland” wherein opposition leaders are assassinated, where Ukraine is disempowered and the Putin-Eurasian-Union of autocrats, oil and gas, are reigning. Although Ramaphosa has recently put on ice the Mahlobo nuclear deal and allowed only the building of two nuclear reactors in South Africa by Russia, is there still alleged remnants of corruption and theft coming from the initial Mahlobo’s nuclear deal valued at R1.6-trillion.195,196,198,199

3.6.6.2. The ANC regime’s growing brotherhood with Communist China

The ANC regime’s twinning with other leftish and Marxist regimes — regimes also cemented in the old-age liberation ideology and mostly saturated in corruption and the utmost autocratic reigning of their people — did not stop with the Russians. This reality is becoming more and more obvious with their present brotherhood with Communist China. China (a blood partner in which direction the post -1994 South Africa in a great extent seems more and more is starting to move) never accepted an economy built around open markets and liberal-democratic western values. The Chinese leaders’ strategies of politics and economics are driven and motivated by their commitment to the upkeep of the Chinese Communist Party’s monopoly on domestic political power, and as said, ignoring the spirit of democracy and disrespects liberal rules and norms. For South Africa, in his growing relationship with and dependence of China to finance its bankrupted treasury, there is, as with the doomed Zuma-Putin nuclear deal, the possibility of another financial disaster under Ramaphosa in making. The much advertised drive of Ramaphosa to collect $100-billion in investments from overseas in five years, reflects two potential disasters in making for the country.13,119,193,200

Firstly, is it seen by the antagonists as an exclusive opportunistic political act by Ramaphosa. If he is successful to obtain foreign investments it undoubtedly will reflect him as a good leader and serves him as an empowerment instrument to establish a leadership of excellence inside the ANC regime, -elite and –party. Such an outcome, argue the antagonists, can cover his leadership short-comings, like a lack of empowerment and popularity inside the greater ANC. The changes will be good that the strong political-radical Zuma-faction in the NEC can be expelled and the hostility of the KwaZulu-Natal ANCs against him also be erased. The second outcome holds the same kind of catastrophic outcome as had the fully Mahlobo’s nuclear deal been accepted. Unavoidable go with development investments/loans guarantees and pre-requisites to assure that the investments/loans are been back-paid with profits. No lunch is free, as the Zuma-Putin-nuclear-deal had shown when the tin of beans was open. The R10–billion by Mercedes-Benz at its East London plant, the $10-billion pledges by Saudi-Arabia and United Emirates respectively and the $14.7-billion pledge from China and $2.5-billion from the China Development Bank for example in Ramaphosa’s effort to collect $100-billion in investments from overseas in five years, all come undoubtedly with pre-requisites that can have clauses which can struggle at the end South Africa’s economy and its political independence. How the ANC regime is doing loans and investments (seemingly in line with the Communist China’s corrupted business and human ethics) inside this hopeful $100-billion Ramaphosa-investment-drive without a definite aim and plan, and a lack of openness to give insight of the possible presence of corruption and fraught, was confirmed by the fact that the Bob Davies, the Trade and Industry Minister, could not give any details for instance at the recent BRICS-summit on the $14.7-billion Chinese investment, and only could mention the $2.5-billion as a “loan” by the Chinese Bank to Eskom. It is excited big money, but it has “snacks” for the country as a whole on the long term.13,119,193,200 The question is prominent that if Ramaphosa and his cronies are suddenly ousted, what are going to happen with his deals?

The doubts and concerns of Munusamy’s200 about Ramaphosa’s and his intimate cronies’ business attics are justified. It must be also the doubts and concerns of the ordinary South African. At least are here concerns and doubts in-depth shared (and treated as a possible new effort of state-capturing) by the antagonists, when she writes200:20: “We can only hope that investment and loans still mean different things, and that we do not have to pay back the “investments” money to the Chinese. But if Davies does not know what these vast amounts of money are pledged towards, how are the rest of us supposed to drink the Kool-Aid?”

Bruce13 takes this specific concern further by asking, after a very in-depth reviewing of the Chinese investments, if it is at the end not going to cost South Africa’s its sovereignty as the Russian Mahlobo’s nuclear deal nearly did? Far fetch? Not at all, posits Bruce13, reflecting on the political empowerment already inside South Africa by the Chinese. Bruce writes13:16:

“It already happened recently with the ousting of a journalist of the Independent newspaper group of Iqbal Survé, which Survé bought a fewer years ago with a strong financial input by the Chinese, dare to critisise the discriminative and suppressive racial and religious treatment of China’s Muslim population.”

For the South African poor masses, burdened by VAT and fuel price rises (and betrayed by the ANC regime since 1994 to better their financial disposition), it would be important to know what these investments pledges really mean before the 2019-Election.13,119,193,200

What is clear from this secrecy of the ANC elite is that some of these loans are to be paid in dollars, like the $2.5-billion (R37-billion) recently loan to Eskom. The recent pledges of investment/loan made by the Chinese of almost R400-billion to South Africa, again also lacks details in what currency the investment or the loan might be denominated in, or what it will be spent on.13,14,15,117,186,200

Notwithstanding this blanket on information, is the only assurance by the ANC regime regarding their deals with China, the ANC regime’s remark that South Africais in no danger of losing anything, writes Bruce13. The minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Lindiwe Sisulu defends these mysterious new Chinese loans and investments simple by arguing that the country wants to be free from its previously European ties and wants to develop its industries on the back of somebody they can depend on inside the ANC’s ideological route of revolutionaries. This, say the antagonists, gives a very in-depth insider-view of the gobbling up of South Africa by China and our growing dependence of finance by China at all cost to can survive our failed economics13:16: “We ‘falling into the arms of the Chinese not because we want, but because we have to’”, posits Bruce13. But it goes further: the introduction of South Africa into the outdated and failed communistic political system where autocratic and suppression of South Africans will become the rule and all private land and assets be nationalised.

Xi Jinping, president of China makes no secret about China’s ambitious plans to enlarge its global influence, while it’s common knowledge that in all these actions China’s short and long term interests come first. (This is reflected well by China’s basically exclusively buying at cheap South Africa coal, iron-ore and other mining products, ignoring constructive trade that can better the value-chains in South Africa’s economy.) And the Chinese like to make new markets fitting exclusively to their own needs and plans by building workable infrastructures, like harbours, roads and buildings, to serve exclusively their own import and export needs in their “financial dependent” African allies, like South Africa. Take for instance Ramaphosa’s signed deal with his beloved China on their building of a new coal power station of 4 600 MW (an equivalent to another Medupi), effectively owned by them, which is seemingly not going to feed into the national grid, but instead will feed a 60km2 metallurgical zone in which the Chinese will produce power to run a Chinese owned integrated steel-mill and a large variety of other iron and steel projects. This Chinese development setup will collapse any local labour input and permanent employment in South Africa. This project, still to be developed, was well-selected by the Chinese for their exclusive interest because it sits on the railway line north into the rest of Africa.14,117

On the well-masked attack of South Africa’s political and economic sovereignty, allowed by Ramaphosa and his Minister Sisulu to their partner, the political radical China, to stream into the South Africa’s industrial heart via loans, projects and investments and the occupying of its soil, Bruce13 writes13:16: “It’ll be interesting to see how many local firms and how much local labour goes into China Zone. Because once signed and sealed, it’ll be all but Chinese territory. All we can hope is that Ramaphosa has extracted a price commensurate with the privilege he’s given to Xi Jinping”.

For the antagonists are there much more involved. Prominent stands here the present land expropriation and the possible role of China in “helping” the incoming Black poor farmers to set up a Black farming sector and the finance around it.13-15,117,186

The editorial of the Sunday Times, dated the 29th July 2018, showing praise for Xi Jinping and China’s efforts to “uplift South Africa” and alleged that South Africa has already safeguards in place against Chinese investment terms that do not favour the country’s interest in the long run. But the editor admits in the same breath that Xi Jinping is a master at “realpolitik” and that China is known to shun local labour, skills transfer and localisation in foreign projects. Contradicting himself, the editor at the same time (notwithstanding his earlier safeguarding remark), asks himself the question if South Africa had safeguard its interest during negotiations! More in this context of Chinese opportunism, it is important to note that the China Zone has the potential for further Chinese development and of their South Africa possession-taking through some of the recent masse investments promised by China to Ramaphosa and, guided in some masked way by these secret China-deals, to can steer Ramaphosa to build new corridors for further Chinese development from the China Zone in Limpopo to Richards Bay. Free and cheap land for Chinese use stand clearly out.13-15,117,186

Zuma failed to make provision when doing his exclusive Mahlobo’s nuclear deal with Putin for such a commensurate (besides of course state-capture!). Can Cyril Ramaphosa, coming also from the Jacob Zuma-stable, really be trusted with the country’s front-door keys to can handle the eagerly knocking Chinese? The question for the antagonists is: Can the gratis availability of masse White-farmlands and other land grabbed from Whites without compensation, not also going to fit well into the Chinese-ANC-scheming of more Chinese developments inside a so-called China Farming Zones?

Regarding the darkness of the general public by the Ramaphosa-regime about most of their present business doings with the Chinese and the possibility that nasty surprises can spring suddenly from it, the journalist Bronwyn Nortjè makes reference of the so-called conspiracy theory already presence, namely that the sole aim of land expropriation without compensation by the ANC is to make land cheaply available for Chinese farming projects in corporation with the poor and landless Blacks, making the start-up and running costs of the post-2019 policy on land expropriation for the ANC regime minimal. This “absurd” viewpoint is not without merit, seeing that most of the dealings with the Chinese by Ramaphosa and his intimate team, as said, are mostly under a cloud of secrecy without any good reason offered to defend this secrecy (The whole intended project of land-expropriation also falls in the same category of secrecy, cutting out the public of the intentions, new ownerships, etc., beyond the vague “announcement” that it is meant for the poor and landless Blacks). With a reasoned concern of further wrongdoing of all kinds by the ANC, it is important to note that the Zondo Commission shows that the ANC regimes previous so-called “business deals on behalves of the country” is undoubtedly something more comprehensive heinous than just state-capture. Crookery, corruption, self-enrichment and political manipulation are salted in the ANC regime’s planning, thinking and doing over a broad terrain, with the state and the country the two easiest lambs to kill. Is the absurd story of a relation between a Chinese urge for South African farmland and land-grabbing not indeed a smoking gun, ask the antagonists.13-15,117,186

It is indeed a smoking gun if the Akkerland farm incident serves as example. Hereto Dr Theo de Jager40, the president of the World Agricultural Union, gives as some answer with regards to the rumours of land grabbing, specific for corrupted Chinese interests, wherein Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, the minister of land-development and land-transformation and other prominent ANC elite’s stand central with their hastily and forcing expropriation intentions. With reference to the first farm in this expropriation-drive, namely Akkerland in Limpopo – which was intended to be expropriated at a fraction of its real value for the “community” – it came to light that this was a cover-up because the land was urgently needed by a mining company which wants to mine coal on it for a Chinese industrial development project which is also going to form part of a massive Chinese power-station and metal-layouts/plants between Louis Trichardt and Musina. (The expropriate order of her was in the meantime halted by the land-claim’s court).40

The hard economic, social and political facts that the Western-orientated South Africa and China do not play the same rules all-over, is seemingly missed out in Ramaphosa’s and Sisulu’s political mindsets. Or is there another kind of capture and state-reorientation in making with the growing new ANC-China-brotherhood?201

The fact that South Africa is in serious economic trouble, lacking strong executive political leadership with integrity across the society, makes the awareness of new state wrongdoings under the blanket, as in the time of Zuma, prominent around the new love affair with China.189,202 Munusamy’s202 warning brings as again back to our contingent of failed ANC-leaders who can again start-up immense wrongdoing like land-capture. About the much needed strong executive leaders in the present-day South Africa, especially the ANC regime, she writes202:18: “That leadership is not evident anywhere, certainly not in politics. The lesson from experience of state capture is that the government should never be trusted with too much power and the citizenry always needs to be aware of the activities of their elected representatives”.

Looking critical to China’s economic intentions with South Africa, it is clear that it is using South Africa opportunistic as it is also doing with the many other instable Africa-countries it had encircled as so-called business-partners. China’s intention and inclination are primarily to get it self here well-established to put the hand on South Africa’s cheap, vast deposits of platinum group metals, gold, manganese and chrome. Further are there South Africa’s economically affordable mangoes, apples, plums, oranges, pears, grapes, cherries and wines which are much popular in China. Besides above recent promised investments of R17.2-billion by China, the country already investments in South Africa infra-structure are estimated to be $25-billion, with a further $5-billion in wind-power in Northern Cape and R220-million in the clean-cement industry. The already silently rooting of the Chinese supremacy into South Africa is the further indicator that China is in total involve in 300 investment projects and helped to create work for so-called 400 000 jobs here. The immense Chinese growing network and its rooting into the ANC’s structure of politics and economics in South Africa, is evidenced in the fact that the China-South African trade has increase with 25 times from 1994 after the ANC’s power-taking.188

But above picture of an “increase with 25 times” from 1994 to 2018 is in reality very imbalanced and misleading. It does reflect overall “trading movements”, missing out on the presence of real good trading benefits for South Africa. True to Xi Jinping’s “realpolitik” is China the sole winner. The economist Dr Roelf Botha193:4 reports in this context that the South Africa export of manufactured products to China was only 7% of the total exports to China while the imports of these kinds of products from China were more than 90% of the total imports from China. This endangers the existence of the local manufacturers of South Africa which already are struggling. The poor quality of these cheap manufactured Chinese products, as well as their industrial products, specific like the 2014 Transnet’s buying of 591 locomotives, is excellent examples. Further is the negative outcome of these Chinese imports visible in the fact that the over the last five years the local manufacturing sector grows only 2% while the growth in imported manufactured products from China has risen to more than 30%. Botha193 shows that if the metals and mineral exports to China are excluded, South Africa’s trade deficit in 2017 was R167-billion with China, reflecting a 34% deficit, which is more than the total trade deficit of South Africa to the USA, India, France, Italy, Japan, South-Korea and Britain.193

Central in the new Chinese largesse to South Africa as a BRICS-partner, stands China’s so called Belt and Road development-scheme, based on the Chinese comprehensive and sincere relationship with Africa, where through the Chinese government lent to various Africa-governments around $100bn (R536 trillion) to finance large infrastructure projects. This Chinese venture already led thereto that Chinese exports to Africa doubled from 2009 to 2015, to make China Africa’s largest trading partner. While the initial outcome of this Chinese-presence was experienced as positive by some African-countries, the Chinese Belt and Road scheme became more sinister from 2014, making mostly the Chinese the only beneficiary.15 Only five African countries are not running a significant trade deficit, writes Bronwyn Nortjè. Jeremy Stevens, the Chinese-economist at the Standard Bank Group, reports that Kenya for example shipped only $166-million of goods to China while it imported $5-billion from China in 2017 (This included the equipment used to build the $4-billion Chinese-funded railway in Kenya).15

Excluding South Africa, accounts the Chinese debt of the total debt contracted by sub-Saharan African countries, around 14%. China’s so-called “assistance” to Africa countries was enlarge in September 2018 with another $60-billion in new development funding, stretching over three years. A further prominence with these Chinese loans, reports Stevens, is that it contains many times clauses that lock-up new markets for capital goods and equipment as well as work-opportunities exclusively for Chinese-labour, making opportunities for the growth and development of the in-debited countries limited. The promise by the Chinese president that “heavily indebted and underdeveloped countries don’t have to worry about paying back the loans”, spells masked-opportunism from the Chinese. Nortje15 can with good reason the Chinese intentions questioned when she says15:9: “…can anyone be that nice?” Remember further over and over her warning: there is not such a thing as a free lunch. Never ever!

Although the Chinese Communist government fronted their impact into South Africa also innocently as part of the Chinese comprehensive and sincere relationship with Africa, is the arriving of the new Chinese largesse in South Africa a point of great concern for the antagonists, seen from a political and economic viewpoint. The question for the antagonists is if the incoming Ramaphosa – Xi Jinping politic-socioeconomic-venture is not, as said before, again a repeat of the dangerous previous Zuma-Putin-Mahlobo-venture wherein it was alleged that South Africa’s uranium deposits as well as its mineral-rights as guarantees stood central. Further is there for the antagonists the land expropriation issue wherein the Chinese can become very prominent role players. And of course stands here for the antagonists again prominent the allegations of enormous bribes in the rewarding of contracts which surely can include the present land of Whites.15,188,193

3.6.6.3. BRICS-kabaya’s “realpolitik” of the re-colonisation and enslaving of South Africans

For South Africa, arguing the antagonists, is a prominent outcome of the whole China-South African-trade-venture via BRICS, the “Chinese chains” accompanying it, like the possible rising of the debt obligations bonded to the Chinese loans/investments and our ability to finance that debt, the snatch up for cheap by the Chinese of our raw materials and a growing dumping place of Chinese poor quality products in South Africa. Hereto stands also China’s undoubtedly infiltration of the South African politics and governance system. Inside the present strong political-economic impact on South Africa by China, can the Chinese final outcome be far-away from an altruistic one as Ramaphosa and his cronies as well as Xi Jinping’s try to project to the world.

For the antagonists it can be the beginning of a gobbling-up of the country over a broad spectrum by China. Re-colonisation through “realpolitik”, as previously indicated, by the antagonists, seems a possible outcome. Easing for the Chinese to can infiltrate the South African politics and economics stand for the antagonists the corruption and willingness by some of the ANC elite in their handing-over of the birth-rights of South Africans to the Chinese, as was shown by the well-planned think-out corrupted Mahlobo-nuclear-Zuma-Putin deal. The fact that the ANC lacks funding and know-how to start up an immense Black farming sector, make the Chinese with their so-called “development capital” and their seasoned farming expertise an ideal partner to manage and to develop the masse of White farm land they intent to expropriate without compensation.15,188

The already corrupted ANC elite’s brotherhood with BRICS represents at this stage for the antagonists another crooked root growing fast into the already dysfunctional political and socioeconomic system of South Africa. The political contamination of South Africa can bring full out the nationalizing of private assets and the suppression of minority groups as the Whites.

4. Conclusions

It is clear for the antagonists that numerous contaminating elements and role-players are making the political and socioeconomic system of South Africa dysfunctional. The ANC is a prominent player in this regard. Land expropriation without compensation is entangled with all the ANC’s governmental processes and procedures. For the antagonists land expropriation is intimately linked to the ANC’s failed political and economic management, which is exclusively based on Black liberation and revolutionary politics. It is revenge for the past.202-225

Louw138, in this context of the possible vengeful intentions of the ANC on Whites, which is now a primarily motivator for land grabbing by the ANC regime, writes as follows138:173:

Cries for revenge for the injustices surrounding apartheid are still prominent among some Blacks, even after 23 years of the independence from statutory apartheid. Many Blacks still mourn loved ones who were mistreated or killed by the apartheid managers and their accomplices. Many struggle to escape the impoverishment they suffered at the hand of White regimes, especially by the nationalist Afrikaners after 1948. These negative feelings, emotions and thinking are not limited to the poor, lower socio-economic Black classes who form the majority of Blacks, but is also reflected more and more in present-day by the Black upper classes as well. Most feel that there has not been real legal, civil and financial transformation and correction after 1994 to rectify wrongdoings of Whites on Blacks during apartheid. This negative and unbounded psychological energy manifests in various problematic and conflict behaviours in today’s South Africa.

Dr Albertina Luthuli (daughter of the late Chief Albert Luthuli) says that the present flood of racial polarizations could be expected, because she believes the past cannot just be forgotten to suit the needs of the Whites who want to survive in South Africa. The TRC failed in its attempt to bring the past to the present. For many Black persons who had been wronged by the apartheid system, there seems to be no future in South Africa if the past is not first addressed. These persons still seem to think about rectification of the past as a process of revolution, a forced and physical correction of the past. They are caught in the Castro thinking of the 1960s: “…a revolution is a struggle between the future and the past…” They want to exorcise the past in a way that will constitute full-blown revenge for apartheid instead of reconciliation.

For the antagonists the ANC regime and its fixation on revenge for their tragic suffering in South Africa’s political history, is sadly ignorant of the wisdom of the proverb (RT Bennett):

The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence;

The past is a place of learning, not a place of living.

For the antagonists it is clear that they will never escape the ANC’s hate and grudges: they must take on the ANC regime everywhere and in every way to stop their revenge on Whites, it can end in the genocide of Whites. Land expropriation without compensation is for the antagonists only the first step to genocide. The antagonists, looking to the intended stealing of the land of Whites, have no other choice in their fight of the ANC’s present-day delinquent leaders and elite than that prescribed by Mthombothi226:17 when he says: “But it should begin with us: we should be brutally frank and intolerant of the misdeeds of our leaders”.

With this article the antagonists did exactly what Mthombothi226 prescribed: they are pointing out the comprehensive dysfunction of the political and socioeconomic system of South Africa since 1994 with its contaminated elements and role-players, created deliberately by the ANC to execute corruption, criminality and extreme racism. Land expropriation without compensation is only one root in the political and socioeconomic delinquency of the ANC. But it can be a poison root with the ability to kill the innocent and to bring devastation to South Africa.

In the next article, titled: “The antagonists’ arguments, opinions and viewpoints against changing Section 25 (2)(b) of the South African Constitution to make land redistribution without compensation possible: Part 2”, the various contaminated elements and role-players that make the political and socioeconomic system of the country dysfunctional, will be described further and evaluated in depth.

Mthombothi B. Africa is being betrayed by its leaders – now it’s up to us to hold them to account. Sunday Times. 2018 June 3; p. 17.

PEER REVIEW

Not commissioned: Externally peer-reviewed.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The author declares that he has no competing interest.

FUNDING

The research was funded by the Focus Area Social Transformation, Faculty of Humanities, Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University, South Africa.

UNSUITABLE TERMS AND INAPROPRIATE WORDS

Please note that I, the author, is aware that the words Creole, Bantu, Kaffir, Native, Hottentot and Bushman are no longer suitable terms and are inappropriate (even criminal) for use in general speech and writing in South Africa (Even the words non-White and White are becoming controversial in the South African context). The terms do appear in dated documents and are used or translated as such in this article for the sake of historical accuracy. Their use is unavoidable within this context. It is important to retain their use in this article to reflect the racist thought, speech and writings of as recently as sixty years ago. These names form part of a collection of degrading names commonly used in historical writings during the heyday of apartheid and the British imperial time. In reflecting on the leaders and regimes of the past, it is important to foreground the racism, dehumanization and distancing involved by showing the language used to suppress and oppress. It also helps us to place leaders and their sentiments on a continuum of racism. These negative names do not represent my views and I distance myself from the use of such language for speaking and writing. In my other research on the South African populations and political history, I use Blacks, Whites, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaners, Coloureds, KhoiSan (Bushmen), KhoiKhoi (Hottentots) and Boers as applicable historically descriptive names.